Livin' Large – Tales of a Blended Family

My name is Judi, and I am an Olympics Addict

February 9, 2010 · 5 Comments

The first step is to admit it…I have a problem… 

I think I am driving Amy and Shane nuts… 

They are always laughing at me lately… 

All over my complete and utter obsession with the Winter Olympics. 

I am counting the sleeps until Friday…I am like a kid at Christmas.  I am simply giddy!  I have warned everyone that it’s going to be on the television 24/7. 

I enjoy both Summer and Winter Olympic games, but I have to admit, I think the Winter ones are far more exciting.  Bobsleigh, Luge, Skeleton, Freestyle Skiing, Downhill, Figure Skating, Snowboarding, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  It’s all good.  

I have to mention too, the Hockey!!  GO TEAM CANADA!!! 

 

We’re going scrapbooking on Friday night…I am hoping that my friend will indulge me and let me watch the opening ceremonies while we scrap. 

I even love the mascots…they’re sooooo cute: 

 

And I think the choice of Flag Bearer was perfect and you can read about her here 

Clara Hughes...only Canadian to win medals at both the Summer and Winter Games

To my fellow readers…will you be watching?  If so, what’s your favourite event?  Who will you be cheering for?

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Good times, Great Friends, Menu Plan Monday and more…

February 8, 2010 · 7 Comments

Hello everyone, we had an absolutely wonderful weekend.  I’ll tell you all about it, but first:

Make sure you visit I’m An Organizing Junkie for all sorts of menu plans from all over!

Saturday – Souvlaki, Rice and Greek Salad

Sunday – Baked Potato Soup, Crusty Bread and leftover birthday cake

Monday – Shepherd’s Pie and Salad

Tuesday – Sausage Quiche and Biscuits

Wednesday – Roast Chicken, Noodles and Sauce, Veggies

Thursday – Pork Korma over Rice (it’s supposed to be chicken, but we have pork…we’ll see how it goes!)

Friday – Chili & Chips

Sorry, but I have no $$ this week!  Hopefully I will get back on track next week.  We only spent $186 of our $250 budget at 2 grocery stores this week.

Our weekend…was great!!  Friday night, I took Amy to my company “Christmas” party.  We had a major roll out of a new system in December with a brand new contract, so there were no Christmas celebrations.  They held the party on Friday night and we had a blast.  The food was terrible, but we had a great time with my co-workers.  We ended up doing shooters at the bar…after every shot the bartender would do a magic trick.  He was pretty good and I was so drunk!  I haven’t drank that much in years.  Didn’t wake up with a hangover, which is a good thing.

On Sunday we went out to see the progress on the house…we have BRICKS and SHINGLES! 

We took Amy’s Nan with us to see the place and she loved it.  We then went to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore to look at what kind of things they have for our basement reno at the new house.  It’s going to save us a lot of money and we’ll be able to help the charity at the same time.

After that, we went out to the Mandarin for their Dumpling Festival…yummy!  Meri loved the ribs:

Amy and I went out Saturday night for a belated birthday celebrating for her and our friend Kathy who share the same birthday.  We had such a great time with all our girlfriends.  We all met almost 5 years ago through a group on the internet and about 8 of us have been close friends ever since.  We joined because we’re all mums here in Mississauga, but we rarely do anything that involves the kids!  We talked about our annual girls trip to Muskoka in April and hashed out some ideas for our 5th anniversary celebrations in May.  We’re thinking that we want to spend a night out at a hotel and go out dancing…all without husbands and children of course!

Sunday was a lazy day…back to work and the grind today.  I am already looking forward to this coming weekend.  We have a holiday here in Ontario on Monday…Family Day.

Hope everyone has a great week!

→ 7 CommentsCategories: Menu plan mondays · New House!! · This and that · glorious food

Happy Birthday Dear Andrew…

February 4, 2010 · 4 Comments

Our middle child, Andrew, was born on this day in 2004. As a parent, these years always seem to go by in the blink of an eye. I still remember the day he was born so vividly. I was due on Valentine’s Day, but I was hoping that I would go earlier. Those last few weeks of pregnancy were so uncomfortable for me, and I just wanted to meet my boy! We had his name all picked out…Andrew David Frederick; David being his paternal grandfather’s name and Frederick, my father’s middle name. I so wanted to name him Frederick David…but my ex nixed that idea. I didn’t want David as his first name either, so we solved the issue by naming him Andrew. He’s definitely an Andrew…not an “Andy” and not a “Drew”, and don’t even try to call him either of those names, unless you want an earful!

In the wee morning hours of February 4th, I woke up on the couch, which is where I was most comfortable, and got up to run to the bathroom. I heard a pop and felt a gush, my water broke! I called the hospital who advised me to try to get a few hours sleep and come in around 7am. If my contractions started, I should call earlier. I lay down for a while and the contractions started soon after…we called our friend to come watch Allen, and we went to the hospital. At 7:50 am, our, 8 lb, ½ oz boy was born:  red, wrinkly and lots of dark, dark hair.  He was beautiful…of course he still is…

I have written about Andrew, here and here. Most of our regular readers know that Andrew was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was around 20 months old. He is so much more than his autism, and we refuse to let it define who he is.  It’s part of him, yes, but it’s not all of him.  He is a typical 6-year-old boy.  He hates going to bed at night.  He loves Pokémon and Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog.  Andrew enjoys watching television and reading books. He loves his siblings and he fights with them constantly. Andrew is super smart and has an infectious laugh.

 He popped his head up from the top bunk this morning, as he always does when someone goes past his room, and declared “It’s my birthday today, Mum”. I immediately said “No way!” He said “Yes way, Mum. I am SIX today! Did you finish making my cake? Can I see it?” He proceeded to natter on, as he always does. This is the boy who the psychologist figured would never speak. Ha, ha, ha…if only he could see him now…the child rarely STOPS talking. His incessant rambling sometimes makes me wonder why we taught him to speak in the first place.  I am just kidding…I cherish every single word. 

Tonight, we’ll have a birthday dinner and he’ll get to open up all his presents. He’s so excited about turning six. I love watching the joy on his face when he’s truly happy. Happy Birthday to you Andrew…we love you, so very much.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Autism · Birthday · Blended Family · we love our kids

I don’t wanna go and you can’t make me…

February 2, 2010 · 4 Comments

I don’t want to move, I really don’t.  I mean, yeah, it’s going to be nice not to rent anymore.  It’s going to be great to be able to decorate anyway we want.  It will be great that the house is ours, that it’s in a nice subdivision and I will be closer to my parents.  We’ll be able to put down roots and raise our kids in one home for the rest of their childhood.  All those things are wonderful reasons to move.  But I don’t want to…I don’t want to because… well, because I don’t want to take the kids out of the school that they’re in now!

I had Aaron’s very first parent-teacher interview today.  He’s in Junior Kindergarten and is 4 year s old.  He’s doing great and I am so happy to hear it.  He’s right on track for what Ms. M expects of him.  Two years ago, when I left my ex, Aaron was 2 ½ and very far behind.  When Aaron was about 6 months old, we got Andrew’s ASD diagnosis.  I think we spent so much time dealing with Andrew’s issues, that Aaron fell by the wayside.  So the fact that Ms. M thinks that he’s caught up is so very exciting for us.  For any readers out there not familiar, here in Ontario, Canada, we have 2 years of kindergarten in most areas; Junior and Senior.  If we were staying, Aaron would have Ms. M again for Senior Kindergarten

Every single time I walk through the doors of “T.P.S.” I get teary-eyed at the prospect of moving away.  Every time I speak with one of our kids teachers, I am sad that we’re leaving in the fall.  The school our boys are in is top-notch, from the Principal, to the Vice-Principal, to all the teachers that our kids have had over the 2 ½ years they’ve been there.  What a phenomenal group of educators they are.  The best part is that they all care so much about the kids and truly believe in the partnership of parents and teachers in educating kids.  I am sure that our new school will be great…Mrs. M (the principal) assured me that the new school has a very similar philosophy…but there’s still that fear that we’re going to be missing out somehow.

To Mrs. M (Principal) and Mr. F (Vice Principal), thank you for being such great leaders.  To Mrs. C, Ms. B, Mrs. K, Ms. M, Mr. P and Mr. D…thank you for teaching our kids and caring about not just their minds, but also their hearts.  To Mrs. K, Andrew’s  TA, thank you for your loving support of Andrew and his needs.  To Mrs. S and Mrs. R, our Special Education teachers, thank you for all your hard work with Allen and Andrew.  Thank you all for your dedication…we are going to miss you tremendously.  I am happy that we’ll be able to finish out the year at TPS, but I wish I could pick up the school and take it with us to our new home.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Autism · New House!! · school · we love our kids

Menu Plan Monday ~ Monday, February 1, 2010

February 1, 2010 · 1 Comment

Hey!  How was everyone’s weekend?  Ours was busy, but fun.  Unfortunately, now Shane is sick.  He went to the walk in and the doc said he was on the verge of pneumonia . 

It’s Menu Plan Monday again and go check out I’m An Organizing Junkie and her menu and a whole bunch of others. 

Day Meal  Cost
Sunday Easy Pork LoMein, Salada $8.29
Monday Roast Beef, Scalloped Potatoes, Cauliflower $11.45
Tuesday Oktoberfest Sausage Soup, Biscuits $10.25
Wednesday Crockpot Meatballs, Egg Noodles, Beans and Carrots $10.27
Thursday Ham and Broccoli Casserole, Chocolate Birthday Cake $9.48**
Friday Hot Dogs and Coleslaw $5.29
Saturday Roast Chicken, Potatoes, Peas $7.45

** Andrew’s birthday is on Thursday, he turns 6, and he asked for this for his birthday dinner.  Every kid gets to choose what they want for when it’s their special day.  If they choose to order in, then they get one less present.  He’s helping me make a chocolate cake with vanilla icing the night before. 

Our total for the week for dinners was $62.48.  Our grocery shopping trip this week was $185.24.  We’ll definitely have money left over in the jars this week as milk should be the only thing we’ll need until the jars are filled again.

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Shopping with 9-year-olds…

January 30, 2010 · 10 Comments

by Judi 

Today I had to go and do some running around for gifts.  Amy and I have a baby shower to go to this afternoon, and Andrew’s 6th birthday is fast approaching (this coming Thursday).  Shane took Austan, one 9-year-old, with him to go for last-minute renovation shopping for his mother.  Shane’s being paid to finish his mother’s basement and they wanted to buy building materials before tomorrow’s deadline for the Home Renovation Tax Credit that the Canadian government offered for 2009.  That money is going to go directly into the house fund, once Shane completes the job.  So, I took Allen, my first-born, also 9, out to the mall to help me shop. 

Allen brought his wallet, his Chapters gift card from his birthday, and his HMV gift card that he got from Poppy John and Kathy.  He was on a mission with that gift card from HMV and knew exactly what he wanted: 

Allen LOVES Michael

Of course, Allen had no idea who Michael Jackson was until the man passed on last summer, but he has become a huge fan and so wanted to see this movie in the theatre.  We don’t do many movies, because they are just too expensive to take everyone, so I suggested we wait until it came out on DVD.  It was just a little bit more than the $25 gift card that he had, but he paid for that out of his allowance money. 

Next up was shopping for little brother.  This is where he actually made me proud.  He knew Andrew wanted some more Geronimo Stilton books to read.  Allen still had some money left over from his Chapters gift card from his own birthday back in October.  So he used his birthday gift card to buy 2 more Geronimo books for Andrew!  He also picked up this classic for himself: 

 

Excellent choice!  There was no prompting from me, either!  I was sure he was going to choose some sort of Pokémon book or something.  There’s also so many really cool new authors and books out there that he could have picked up.  I told him that if he liked the Hobbit, we could get him the Lord of the Rings Trilogy soon.  Some might think  that  LOTR might be too old for a 9-yr-old, but this is the kid who was reading at the age of 4 and is now reading at a far greater level than grade 4…his comprehension and reading skills are probably at around an 8th grade level right now.  I am thinking LOTR will be a great gift for his 10th birthday in October. 

We then went into Wal-mart and looked for Andrew’s big gift (and I can’t write it down because Andrew is pacing back and forth around the computer and reading this as I write, lol – he can read well too – sometimes not a blessing).  Allen found some Bakugan thingys (I have no idea, lol) that were on clearance, so he spent a little on that, and decided to buy Austan a little toy for his Tech Deck.  He bought it because “It’s just not fair that I get a new toy and Austan doesn’t”.  Sometimes they just surprise the heck out of ya, don’t they? 

We went to Mickey D’s for lunch, where Allen insisted on a Happy Meal because they have some really cool Olympic Mascot toys.  I picked up Andrew’s gift, a few things for the shower gift, and we left the store.  I generally hate shopping and malls with a passion…but today’s trip was really great, plus I got to spend some time with my first born.

→ 10 CommentsCategories: This and that · we love our kids

Sinusitis, plans for the weekend, and MMR doc guilty of professional misconduct…

January 29, 2010 · 1 Comment

by Judi

We’ve been MIA over here at Livin’ Large…it’s been a particularly rough week for me and subsequently a very busy week for Amy because I was down for the count.  Last Friday night, after a lovely dinner (at least I am told it was lovely by my family…they just love food, lol), I started feeling all feverish and headachy.  I went to bed early and woke up with the worst blocked sinuses that I have ever had.   I took a decongestant and headed out dress shopping with Amy for my company ‘Winter Wonderland’ party next weekend.  We found dresses at the Sears Outlet store (mine was an $89 dress marked down to $14.88!!) and we went off to do groceries.  By then I was feeling so terrible that I left Amy at the grocery store, went home and had Shane go pick her up.  Monday, I headed out to the walk-in clinic and was diagnosed with Sinusitis.  Andrew and Charlotte were also sick, so they went with me…both had ear infections.  Amoxicillin all around!!  WOO HOO!  I took Monday and Tuesday off work  and thanks to my accumulation of PTO days (paid time off), I still get paid.  Tuesday I took Allen to the walk in and he had tonsilitis…more Amoxil!  Went back to work Wednesday when I probably shouldn’t have, but I muddled through the day.  It’s now Friday…I am still trying to get rid of this infection and still getting tired quick, but I am feeling much better than I was on Monday.

We have a fairly busy weekend.  Tonight, Amy and I get to go scrapbooking at our friend’s place for the evening.  Tomorrow we will have shopping and I have a baby shower to attend.  We have all the kids this weekend…the A-team’s dad is sick, so he asked very nicely if he could switch weekends and I agreed.  I was hoping to go out and see if there’s more progress on the house on Sunday, but it’s frozen over here and the temps are expected to be colder than -20 with the wind chill.  A friend drove by last week and she let us know that the brick facing was going up on the house…which has me terribly excited!

On another note, something else that has me happy was this news story in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which tells us that the General Medical Council (GMC) in Britain has found Dr. Andrew Wakefield to have   “failed in his duties as a responsible consultant” and showed a “callous disregard” for the suffering of children involved in his research.   They found him ‘misleading and irresponsible in the way he described research’.   If you don’t know, Andrew Wakefield is the researcher who basically started off the entire MMR vaccine controversy back in 1998.   The research paper, and the flurry of press afterward, led to a drop in MMR vaccine uptake and a dramatic increase in measles outbreaks in the United Kingdom because of the fear that the MMR vaccine caused Autism.   The research has yet to be replicated and there is still no evidence of any link between the MMR and Autism.   Wakefield stands to lose his license to practise medicine in the UK due to these findings. Dr. David Gorski wrote a great post  at Science Based Medicine about a year ago regarding Andrew Wakefield and it explains a lot about why Wakefield was being investigated by the GMC.   It’s no secret to many of my friends that I do not buy into the whole ‘vaccines cause autism’ controversy.  To this date there is no scientific evidence that links vaccines to autism and that is where I stand on the whole thing.  This is my belief based on research and I am entitled to it…if you disagree, you’re entitled to your opinion as well,  but I will not enter into debate on it here.  For more insight into these finding, I will direct you to a great blog post from Liz at I Speak of Dreams, who has compiled a list of blogs that are both supportive of the GMC’s decision and those bloggers and organizations that are against it .  It’s incredibly thorough, and  I hope you will go and check it out because there are some great blogs there.  I really like that Liz is fair and is posting the perspective of bloggers who are supporters of Dr. Wakefield as well. 

That’s about it for now…hope everyone has a great weekend!

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Saving at the Grocery Store

January 19, 2010 · 15 Comments

*This is a partial repost of a note I put on my facebook page back in September. ~ Judi

People often ask how do we live on a grocery budget of $250 a week, including diapers and toiletries, for 10 people?  It takes a bit of planning, but we get ‘er done.

1. We scour the flyers every week.  We will generally plan our meals around specials at the grocery store. 

2. Shop with a list…stick to the list and don’t pick up convenience or spur of the moment buys.

3. Watch for specials on meat…often the stores mark things down the day before the new flyer comes out or at night before the store opens in the morning. You can get some great deals if you’re looking for them.  Shane will often peruse the meat section on the evenings he goes out to get us milk and will often come home with a deal or two.

4. Stay OUT of the aisles…try and do most of your shopping on the perimeter of the store. If you notice, the meat, produce, dairy and bakery are all the around the perimeter of the store. We maybe go down only 3 or 4 aisles of the store on an average trip and they are usually for something specific.  The aisles are where they get you most often with crap that you don’t need!

5. If you do go down the aisles, always look at the bottoms and tops of the shelves, they put the highest price items right at eye level. The less expensive alternatives are on the lower shelves.

6. Don’t buy brand name!! Most of the time your taste buds can’t tell the difference. Store brands are great value and MOST of the time are just as good. Of course there are a few things that we still buy brand of…some things are just not the same…just budget for them!  One thing that we’re not compromising on lately is ketchup…we like Heinz much more than the store brand and will look for it on sale.

7.  Eat less meat.  The reason we get away with a lot of things is that we don’t eat a ton of meat.  We do have it at every meal, but it’s small portions for everyone…it cuts down on cost.  We fill up on vegetables and potatoes, pasta and rice.

8.  Shop for vegetables that are in season!  We eat a ton of root veggies in the winter because they are the cheapest.  That’s good because soups and stews are great when the weather is cold.

9.  Finally, we shop at discount stores, very rarely do we shop at Metro or Loblaws.  Our favourite store is Food Basics.  We find, for our menus, that they generally have everything we need.  We will also shop at No Frills and Price Chopper, but we find those 2 stores are slightly more expensive that FB and try to only go there when they have really good specials.

Anyway, that’s how we are able to cut costs and I am sure I have forgotten some things.  How do you cut costs at the grocery store?

→ 15 CommentsCategories: Frugal Living · glorious food · grocery store deals

Menu Plan Monday ~ January 18

January 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Hope everyone had a great weekend…ours was busy, but very fun!  Amy and I got a lot of scrapbooking done and we had a wonderful dinner out at Milestones.  Well, most of the dinner was good…I tried one of their drinks…not a Bellini or a Martini.  Can’t remember the name, but it had pineapple juice, rum, lime, ginger ale.  Anyway, it came and tasted a little weird…certainly not like rum at all.  Shane and Amy both tasted it, and we figured the pineapple juice was bad.  So I sent it back and had a Diet Pepsi instead…lol.  We also did not enjoy their Caesar Salad.  As Amy’s mum says “Caesar Salad should bite back!”,  and this one certainly did not bite back…it was very vinegary (is that a word) and not enough garlic at all.  Otherwise the food was very good and we’ll go back.   I don’t know if it’s at all Milestones locations, but they have a special on for Valentines…from Thursday the 10th until Sunday the 14th, dinner for 2 for $50…includes a shared appetizer, a nice entrée (choosing from 4 different ones ranging from $18.99 to 26.99 each) and a shared dessert.  Drinks of course, are extra, but I think that’s pretty good.

Here’s our meal for the week.  We spent $186.50 at the grocery store this week.  Not too bad.  Our goal is to come under $200.00 so that we have about $50 left over for other things we might need during the week.  Don’t forget to check out all the other wonderful meal plans at I’m an Organizing Junkie.

Day Meal  Cost
Sunday Spaghetti and Meat Sauce $6.62
Monday Fish, Noodles & Sauce, Veggies $16.98
Tuesday Chicken Corn Chowder, Biscuits $8.16
Wednesday Beef Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Cauliflower with Cheese Sauce $9.65
Thursday Jerk Pork Roast, Noodles & Sauce, Veggies $9.25
Friday Egg Foo Yung, Easy Pork Lomein, Fried Rice $10.69
Saturday Tacos and Salad $9.46

Our dinners for the week total $70.81…we did pretty good and we had a pretty expensive dinner today.  We splurged on some really nice herb encrusted Tilapia fillets for the grups.  They were delish!

Looking forward to working from home 2 days a week again.  My company had a major implementation over the last 2 months and we were not allowed to work from home.  It was lifted and I can go back to working at home on Tuesdays and Fridays.  It will be nice to get back into my pre-December routine and to be home a couple of days a week to take the kids back and forth to school and generally help Amy out.  Otherwise, it’s going to be a pretty uneventful week here.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Frugal Living · Menu plan mondays · glorious food

Busy, busy, weekend

January 15, 2010 · 5 Comments

Hope everyone had a good week.  I don’t know about you, but I am so glad the weekend is here!  I have spent the week battling a cold and it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed most of the week.  On Monday I took a sick day, Wednesday afternoon I went home early.  Added to that was the guilt I had for leaving Amy at home while she’s not feeling well.  Meredith sometimes sleeps through the night, but most often does not, so Amy is not sleeping and therefore run down.

This weekend is a busy one…here’s our To Do List:

  1. Take my boys to their Dad’s Friday night
  2. Laundry, laundry and more laundry
  3. Send pictures online to Walmart for printing
  4. pick up pictures
  5. All Day crop Saturday – a ‘no frills’ crop where we bring our own lunch and we only pay for the space to crop
  6. Dinner out for Amy’s birthday – GRUPS ONLY…YAY
  7. Plan next weeks menu
  8. Grocery shop
  9. Laundry, laundry, and more laundry
  10. Pick up the boys from their Dad’s on Sunday
  11. Shane, Austan, and Allen go to Monster Trucks at Skydome on Sunday…I mean, Rogers Centre

Anyone else have any interesting plans for the weekend?

→ 5 CommentsCategories: This and that