Our Lives Have Changed

I apologize for being away from the blog for so long. So many things have changed in our lives which have kept me so busy!

One awesome change has been our home. We sold our 30+ year old, 1000 square foot home in the city and bought a beautiful 1 year old, 1400 square foot home on almost 3 acres of land outside of the city. It has been a huge adjustment for us all but I think now we're in our groove and loving it! I was a little sad to leave our old home behind but more excited for a new adventure as a family. This is a picture of us at our new home the day we got posession.

We started out with absolutely no grass, but it has filled in so my hubby enjoys mowing it on his new tractor. Ceili, our oldest loves to help too. I have learned all sorts of things like how to use a chainsaw, log splitter and more! We are on a bit more of a budget since we moved so I have gotten very good at baking all of our own bread as well. We have met quite a few of our neighbors in the subdivision and a few people close by. Everyone has been very welcoming and kind to us.

We have had a cougar issue around our home since the beginning of fall. It is a cub and has been hanging around our yard and the neighbors. The first time my hubby saw it was when our dog and it scared eachother at the edge of the treeline. They both went jumping backward in the air! Since then we have seen it a few more times and have become much more aware of our surroundings. Ceili is a little more frightened than her sister so we have to keep reassuring her that it's not going to get her. Animals are part of living in the country and we just need to get used to it, although this cougar should probably be moved since it seems to like humans!

All in all we are happier now than I think we have ever been. We are enjoying "camping" in our home and seeing all of the nature around us. I really love the fact that we have so much space and can do what we want when we want to and the loudest noises we hear is the wind for the most part. I am in love with our new life.

First Day of Kindergarten

Yesterday our little girl, Ceili took a big step. She had her first day of kindergarten! She was so excited and nervous all at the same time. I was so excited for her too, but so sad for me because this is the end of having her all to myself every day! Thankfully she's only in half days or I would have really lost it!

It seems like yesterday I had just given birth to her and was holding her for the first time. Now she's 5 years old and going to school! I just can't believe it, time sure goes by quickly once you're a parent.

We took a few pictures, as you can see she wants to make crayons when she's grown up...precious. Then we did our usual first day tradition, started when she went to preschool last year- took her out for a special breakfast before school. Matt said that he wants to be there for the first day of school every year for our girls which I think is wonderful. Then we took her to her big, huge school. When I went to take the picture of her, she looked so tiny in front of that giant school!

We were early so we wandered around the school for a bit. We got her settled then the national anthem came over the intercom and we all stood. That's when she looked up into my eyes, her little bottom lip quivering and said "Mommy, I don't want you to go". I started tearing up! I talked to her and told her she would be alright and everyone there was her friend. She went and played a bit and then we left.

When we left I cried; it was out of pride for our big girl mixed with a bit of nervousness for her and sadness for myself and Abbey because we would be missing out on so much time with her. I knew she would be fine there and she was safe, I just knew this was the end of having her home during the day. Next year will be a full day!

Anyway, I survived after my tears and walked home with Abbey. We got a lot of laundry and cleaning done and went back to get Ceili. She was very excited to see us and tell me all about the things she did. She had a great day today as well so we must have picked a good school. I'm happy that she loves school so much and I hope it continues!

Cleanse #2 and Changes!

Matt and I just finished our second Juice Reboot Cleanse on the weekend. It seemed harder this time around but we did it! We changed it up and had vegan dinners instead of the juice because we were having a really hard time with the green juice. In fact, when I even think of kale juice I almost gag!

I only lost 4 lbs this time around, but of course Matt lost 8! He always loses faster than me, but that's okay. I am still happy because I'm now down 38 lbs in only 3 months! I have to say I'm really proud of myself and feeling great. I am down 2 jean sizes and 4 bra band sizes (of course I shrink there first! lol). I splurged and treated myself to 2 new pairs of jeans, some bras and a new swimsuit because my old one might have floated away if I went swimming in it! Better fitting clothes feel great! Matt had clothes stored away in a smaller size so he has a whole new wardrobe too. I didn't have that since I haven't been this small since around the time Matt and I met back 12 years ago. Here's a little comparison of last August and this August.

I took a photo of all of our fruit and veggies for the juice cleanse too. This time we only spent $75 on juice supplies and we went through it all. We were pretty happy that it cost less this time around! We got many items on sale at our local discount produce store so we were lucky.

I have had quite a few friends and family members finally notice I'm losing weight and asking how I'm doing it. Many are very interested in clean eating and juice cleanses and I think it's totally awesome! I'm so sick of seeing fad/shake/medication diets and my friends following them and falling off the wagon and gaining what they lost plus more back. If everyone would just eat real food we would all be a lot healthier!

Christmas Catch-up

I apologize for the large gap in posts. Christmas at our house was very busy and required a lot of preparation this year. I made Christmas dinner for 13 family members and cooked my first turkey. It was a massive 19 pounder and was a little scary, but I managed just fine! Knowing that 13 people's hungry tummies are depending on you making a delicious dinner puts some pressure on a person!

Christmas morning was wonderful for us. We invited my parents for present opening and breakfast. It was so nice to have them there with us and watching the looks on the kids faces as they opened their gifts. We opened stockings, ate breakfast (a yummy cake I found on Pinterest) and then went back to opening more gifts! I got almost everything I asked for- a griddle for making pancakes, a new pedometer, There were alot of gifts this year, but my favorite gift was having all of my family together. It was very cold outside, but our house was warm and cozy and full of love!

Here are a few photos from Christmas at the Thompson household.

The Thompsons Go to Cuba!

We made it to Cuba and home safely...barely!

Our flights there were quite good, Ceili enjoyed the movies and TV on the plane and all of the snacks and toys I packed for her. Abbey alternated between nursing and sleeping most of the time with an explosive poop here and there but it wasn't so bad. I even got to watch the movie "The Help" which was an excellent one!

Cuba was beautiful. It was +30 on average and the humidity was between 85-100% every day. We spent most of our mornings on the beach which was only a few steps from our hotel room (awesome!) and in the afternoon we had a siesta and normally went to the pool. Abbey didn't enjoy the sand at the beach so much. Nursing isn't so easy when there are granules of sand in your mouth and your big sister runs by and sand flies into your face! I think Abbey's favorite part were the siestas in the air conditioned hotel room. Ceili couldn't get enough of the beach, I think every kid would love to spend all day making sand castles and playing in the warm ocean. All of us except for Abbey got a bit of a sunburn and a tan and now we're peeling like snakes.

We hired a guide, Michael to take us into town for a day trip. He took us to the zoo in town, a market, the crocodile farm and a few shops that the Cubans shop at. It was really sad to see the lack of choice they have for food, clothes and items for their homes. For example, one store we stopped at had a few large cans of tomatoes, some beer and pop and the rest was bare shelves. It really makes you appreciate what we have here and how much money we have compared to them. We were glad that we brought the stroller and carseat to give away to someone there after we saw the lack of baby products in the stores. We gave the stroller to a man that worked at the pizza restaurant at our resort that had two girls almost the exact same ages as our girls. The carseat was given to a lady that worked at the Asian restaurant and was due to have her baby girl in mid-June. She just adored Abbey and would pick her up and snuggle her whenever she had the chance.

Matt went out on a deep sea fishing trip on his own one morning. I told him that he had to go because I know he has always wanted to. He had a fantastic time. They speared a stingray that was about 5' across! Little did they realise, the stingray was pregnant and as it lay on the boat it gave birth to a bunch of babies. All of the babies survived and were put back into the ocean. The mama was enough food for a bunch of them at the marina to share, so I think they were pretty happy. I was mad at Matt when I found out that he killed a mama stingray, but I guess how were they to know?

We also went to a beautiful beach called Pilar Beach one morning. The water was such a beautiful aqua color and sand was so fine and white. I thought it was terrible that we had to pay $2 for a lounge chair, but we had an amazing time there. There were tons on angel fish which appeared when Abbey spit up in the water! There were also gar fish that swam all around us and they must have been around a foot long each. The water was so clear, you could see everything!

Our flight home was far too exciting for my liking. We were supposed to fly from Cuba to Toronto. We ended up flying from Cuba to Miami and landing. At one point I looked out of my window and said to Matt "Why are we so

low....are we even flying or are we on the ground?" I could see a city's lights right out my window. Not really below us, but more beside us. Finally after about 30 minutes of me wondering what was going on, the captain comes onto the speaker and tells us what is going on. They were flying so low because there was a cabin pressure problem on the plane and they were trying to fix it. If they would have gone much higher we would have been low on oxygen and the masks would have popped out of the ceiling. Needless to say, they couldn't fix it so they had to get rid of fuel by flying in circles and we finally landed in Miami about an hour later. I really felt lucky to be alive. If those pilots didn't know what they were doing, we wouldn't be here today! We ended up sitting on the tarmac for almost 2 hours while they figured out what they were doing then had to go through customs, get our bags and line up to get our hotel info. It was complete chaos and we finally got into our hotel room at 4:30am. We had to get up and get to the airport again before noon because our plane to Toronto left at 1:30pm. Our last plane ride from Toronto home was uneventful, thankfully and I am not overly excited to fly again in the near future!

Intro

I'm Heidi, a proud mom of two beautiful girls, Ceili (3.5 years old) and Abbey (6 weeks old). I have been happily married to my hubby Matt for 7 years and we live in Alberta, Canada in a small but nice house.

I discovered that I enjoyed blogging when I was pregnant with Abbey and stuck on bed rest for most of it. I started my blog "Blogging from Bed" then and loved having a place for all of my thoughts, so here I am again!

This blog will be about my crazy life with two girls, friends, family, good deals and things that I find funny!