Goodbye 2011

It's official! I have posted every single day this year. Well more accurately I should say that there is a post for every day of the year.

2011 was a year of in-betweens for us. A lot of waiting. A few changes. Lots of new wonderful friends.

I am very much looking forward to 2012 and all the changes it is promising to bring!

Have a safe and Happy New Year! 

In Calgary!

We have made it safely to Calgary! We got in around noon local time today. It was a bit behind schedule because the roads were terrible in Saskatchewan, very icy and snowy.

I mostly shopped and drove around Calgary today. I went to the Chinook mall earlier today to look for something for the wedding. I could not find anything I liked or that would fit or that was affordable for the longest time.

We checked into our hotel and then the boys left for the bachelor party. So the girls went shopping. We went to Ikea and back to the Chinook mall. I bought a maternity dress. A friend who I was with is pregnant so we went to Thyme maternity because there was a good sale. We actually bough the same dress. It was a good deal. I can't wait to be able to wear it!

Off to Calgary

We started the road trip today! The roads were ok when we left home, and are progressively getting worse as we go. This will take us much longer than we had planned. We hadn't even left Winnipeg until 3! Our plan is to stay in Swift Current for night and drive the rest of the way in the morning. We have to be in Calgary by 11 because we have a groomsmen with us that needs to be at rehearsal.

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The End of The Christmas Season

Today we had our 5th and final Christmas gathering of the year. It was filled with good food of course, and great times with family.

We packed some more today, but we still have a few things left and not enough boxes. Tomorrow we leave for Calgary to our friend wedding. I have never been that far west! I am excited about the trip, it should be fun. But with everything going on with the farm and house, I feel like we should stay home!

Packing Day

Today we started the major packing of our house. We started at 10 am, breaked for 1/2 hour for lunch, and packed till almost 4. I packed up the entire living room and Eric did the kitchen. I also did the bathroom and about half of our bedroom.

Even though we have boxes and boxes packed, it feels like we have SO much left. I am planning on packing tomorrow morning too. Hopefully I can get it all done. If not I will just have to do it on the 3rd when we move.

We are really hoping to move on the 3rd, but it is still kinda up in the air. The other people don't know if they will be able to be out by then. I really don't know what we are going to do if we can't move in that day!

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Round 4

We had our 4th gathering today with one of Eric's extended families. It was a great time of course!

Lunch was awesome. So awesome in fact, that it is just after 10pm and I am still full. I have hardly eaten anything else all day. I think tomorrow I am just going to drink a cleansing herbal tea all day instead of eating! We have one more gathering on Wednesday, where the food is sure to be delicious too!

We are blessed to have large families to enjoy and spend the holidays with!


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Hallelujah! The King Is Here

Merry Christmas Everyone! What an incredible thing for God to send His Son, who would give His life for us to set us free! I hope you are having a wonderful time this family and friends and rejoicing in the miracle of this season!

We spend the day with Eric's parents, Grandpa and siblings. It was a great time with games, lots of awesome food made by Eric's mom, movies and lots of Pinterest :) . 

I don't want to make this day about presents, but I had to share this. My husband really spoiled me this year. This morning I got to open this:

I cannot wait to use it!!

Christmas Fun

Today my bro got an Xbox 360 with Kinect. I think I was more excited than he was. So excited that when I was playing I broke a light bulb in his room with my hand!

 We had my extended family gathering today as well. It was a lot of fun! We did a lot of different things this year. We had a program where I read the Christmas story and some of the kids played music.

 This is how much room we need for my family. There was about 80 of us there this year. This is made up of my aunties, uncles, cousin's and a few of my cousins kids.

 My family

 Miya told me "I was born for this"and that "the camera loves me"

Kadence was the lucky kid to get #1 in the gift game!

 The oven mitt game! Trying to open a gift with oven mitts on!

 The adult version! Probably crazier than the kids!

It was such a fun day! Looking forward to the rest of the gatherings!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

We have now begun our Christmas gatherings! This evening we are at my Mom's for night, we will do gifts with them in the morning. Then we head back to Mennville for my mom's extended family gathering. I am really excited about that one. We have a lot of games planned that will be fun. Christmas Day Eric and I will go to church, do our gifts and then go to his parents for the rest of the day. Boxing day we head to one extended family of Eric's, the 27th we pack up our entire house and the 28th is his other extended family gathering. Then on the 29th we leave for Calgary for a friends wedding on the 1st. We get home late on the 2nd and then move into our new place on the 3rd!

It will be quite a crazy time. I am so looking forward to all the gatherings, spending time with family and eating good food. 

January will be one very busy month!

Last Hockey Game

Tonight was my last hockey game of the season. With fertility treatments starting in two weeks, I can't do anything too strenuous. It was a fun game, some of the men's team came out to play with us. It was a little fast for me and I felt left behind and useless for the most part, but I got a lot of ice time!

Christmas festivities start tomorrow night. We are going out to my mom's tomorrow for the night. I still have a few Christmas gifts to finish making. There just is not enough time in the day!

Ugly Sweater Party

This evening we had a last minute Christmas party! We have been talking about an ugly sweater party for a while, but kinda  ran out of time to have it. So it was tonight or no night. It wasn't a huge party, but it was great to hang out with friends before we all go off to our families for gatherings. Next year hopefully we can plan it more in advanced and have it at our place! EEEEEK!!!

Wrapping Assistant

Leona Grey kept me company while I wrapped gifts tonight!

Our Christmas Tree

Here is the finished product! And a few of my favourite decorations.

 

 Our cat Sevens was completely mesmerized by the tree last night. I am sure a few ornamented will go missing this year, as usual.

Christmas Tree Hunting!

It is a Christmas tradition for Eric and his family to go for a Christmas tree together. Ever since we have been married I have gone along to get a tree for us to! It is always a lot of fun, but it always takes WAY more time than you though it would. 

 My new decorations! I think I went a little over board!

 The tree skirt that started it all! I love that it has stars on it, my favourite!

The whole package to come tomorrow!

Christmas Shopping Done!

I finished my Christmas shopping today! Well, there are a few small things I need to pick up in Gimli, but other than that I am done! I did most of it online and at craft sales. Today I took a trip to Selkirk after work to finish off the shopping. I got everything I needed at Wal-Mart, but had a Canadian Tire gift certificate for 25 to use up. I got a 10 dollar item there for my brother, and had the hardest time trying to find something else to spend the other 15 on.

Then I found it, the most beautiful tree skirt ON SALE! We had to throw our other one away last year because it got ruined when we washed it.

Everytime I looked at the Canadian Tire flyer this year I dreamed of the Debbie Travis Homespun collection for my Christmas tree. In other years we have had blue/white/silver but our decor is really cheap. I love the homemade/handcrafted look of the Homespun decor. But it was pretty expensive and I could not afford to buy all new decorations for the tree.

There was a lot of Debbie Travis decor on sale for 60% off, but of course the Homespun collection was not marked down. Or so I thought. I picked a few ornaments from the collection that were around $1 each, just so I could have a few to put on the tree this year to match our tree skirt. My plan was to go back on boxing day and buy all the Homespun decor I wanted on sale! When I went up to the till I was VERY please to find out that all the decorations I had picked out were already on sale for 60% off! Needless today, I was overjoyed. I payed for that, took it out to the car and came back in a bought all the other decorations I had been admiring!

I was having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. With moving so soon after Christmas, I wasn't really wanting to decorate or get a tree. But now I can't wait! Tomorrow we go for a tree!

Another Project

Source: flickr.com via Lindsey on Pinterest

I would LOVE to make this. Each flower is made individually and joined together. It would be a lot of work though!

Rainbow Hair

Source: Uploaded by user via Lindsey on Pinterest

This would be so fun!

Home Cooked Meals

Other than the last three nights, I seriously cannot remember the last time Eric and I cooked a good meal at home. It has been well over a month!

But for the last three nights we have. Monday we made homemade pizza with sundried tomatoes. I LOVE sun dried tomatoes. I can't even get enough of them!

Tuesday Eric had taco salad ready when I got home. He even made some spicy cheese sauce cause we had no cheese it the house. 

This evening I made a Peanut Thai stir fry. The flavour was AWESOME, but my thai sauce to peanut butter ratio was off, and it was way to spicy for me. But ERIC love it. 

Oh how I have missed food like this. I cannot wait until we have a huge beautiful kitchen to cook in!

$75 For Free!

Steeped Tea is having an awesome promotion this month!

If you book a tea party before December 19th, to hold in January, you will get a bonus $75 to spend on tea! That is ALOT of free tea!

Please let me know if you are interested!

Studying

I would like to study the Bible more. Like really study it. I want to be able to find a verse I am looking for instead of just remembering how it goes, sort of.

I don't really know how to do this. Eric suggested memorization. I think that is a great idea. So I am going to start. I am intimidated by the thought of it. It seems like so much!

In Jesus' time, however, that is how the Scriptures were passed along, through words. They didn't have a tonne of Bibles to read. They had to memorize!

Good Sunday

Today was a good Sunday. I had a great sunday school class, a friend came to church for the first time, I had my second Steeped Tea party at 2pm and that is it! I finally had an evening with nothing planned. 

I got a chance to keep working on my Christmas cards. I would like to hand make them all this year! Pretty much everyone will be getting the same one, it makes the process much faster when you have 50+ to make! 

Tomorrow we have an appointment at the bank to talk about a loan for our new place! So excited! Only 3 weeks!

Bro's Hockey

I got to watch my brother play a hockey game for the first time today. I can't even express how excited and proud I am that he is playing. He is 11 and this is his first year. He is doing great!

They have won every game of the season so far, so my bro is pretty pumped about that.

I love that I finally have someone to go watch and cheer for. I can't wait till we have our own kids in sports so I can go watch and cheer them on!

Little Drummer Boy

I love this video! It was done by a 16 year old high school student from Winnipeg. He did everything himself for this song including playing the instruments, editing the video, etc. I think it is an incredible job, very artistically shot, and clear, crisp video. But most importantly I love his enthusiasm! 

Cute

First IUI Appointment!

We had our consent signing/injection training today at Heartland. It went great and I am excited to get started! 

I am not going to lie, I am very nervous about starting injectables. It just seems like such a giant step from what we have done in the past. Unknown territory. And at the same time I am excited to move on. 

Right now I am on BC pills until January 4th. Then when AF arrives I start Suprefact injections for 4 days. Then on the third day of Suprefact I also start 150mg injections of Gonal-F. I will do this for 6 days then I got for some bloodwork and an ultrasound to see how I am progressing and then they will adjust from there. 

First Tea Party

This evening I held my very first Steeped Tea party!

I had a great turn out and booked a few new parties. But most of all I really, REALLY enjoyed sharing tea with people and teaching them about loose tea. I was so excited to order a bunch of new teas for myself and for samples. I can't wait to try them! :)

TMJ

Today I went to the TMJ specialist in Winnipeg. I have had jaw issues ever since I was a teenager. But for the last year or so it had been causing me a lot of pain and headaches and I don't think I have been sleeping well.

The visit went very well. He has a solution for my issues that involve a dental appliance during the day, and a different one for night. I really would like to get them, but they are QUITE expensive. I will have to figure out a way to pay for them soon though, because my jaw pain is getting worse and worse as time goes by. I have good days where it doesn't bother me at all, and then I have bad days where it is very uncomfortable.

I feel like I have so many things wrong with me. :(

Miss Them

Lately I have been missing tiny puppies running around my house. I always start dreaming about puppies around this time of year. But with all my dogs spayed, that won't be happening this year. :(

Last Sale

Today was my last craft sale of the season. It was a cozy home sale that Eric's cousin invited me to. It was really great and they had a really good turn out! I was also at one last night in Arborg.

I am very happy with how my sales went this year! I am hoping to get in some bigger sales this spring and next fall. I need to plan ahead to get in this sales, because lots of them I tried because they were already full! I have a few months to make stuff before the sales start up again.

I will be uploading my current stock to my website, www.cyansea.ca in the next few days!

Steeped Tea

I love tea. I drink a lot of it. I can't really drink coffee because it makes me sick.

So when I heard of Steeped Tea I was pretty excited. It was high quality loose teas and accessories with a direct selling company. It didn't take me long to decide to sign up to be a consultant.

It is a Canadian company started 5 years ago in Hamilton, Ontario.

I am so excited to start doing tea parties. How fun is that?!

Check out the products and company on my website www.mysteepedtea.com/lindsey 

I know what many of you are thinking.... ANOTHER thing that I am selling?!?! I know, I know. But I just couldn't resist! What can I say? I really love tea!

The Start!

I went in for some baseline CD2 bloodwork today. Actually it was CD3 because I forgot my forms at home yesterday. I also had to do a urine pregnancy test. Seems so silly when you are on CD3.

They called me an hour after I was at the lab to tell me the test was negative, and that I would be starting birth control on the 4th. I will take it for a whole month until January 4th. This is the very first step in our IUI and I am excited to be doing something, but not excited to be taking birth control pills. I really want nothing to do with those ever again, but I know they are necessary in this process.

In other infertility news, a woman that I know sent me an interesting Facebook message the other day. I had messaged her to ask if she wanted to host a Partylite show and that's it. In turn, she messaged me back and was wondering if we had ever considered that maybe it was God's plan for my womb to be closed and maybe it was for a reason. She was also wondering why the fertility treatments were so expensive and maybe we should check out how much they are in the US. She also mentioned that she wanted to tell me all this because she didn't want to be one of those people taking behind my back, as she has received some comments about me.

The first few things didn't bother me so much, but it was the fact that people are talking behind my back about my infertility. I am *SO* curious to know what they are saying! What is there to say about someone who is struggling. Do they think I shouldn't talk about it so much? Do they think I shouldn't pursue treatments? And why? Would they say the same things to someone who was sick? Like maybe it was God's plan for them to be ill and maybe they shouldn't go to the doctor?

NO! I firmly believe that God has blessed medical staff with knowledge and skills so that His people can be in turned bless through it! After all, God prefers to work through His children than on His own.

I told this lady to please let those people who have issued with what I am doing to give me a call. I would love to chat with them.