Mommy brain and the boobs...

Mommy brain..mommy brain..what was I going to write about mommy brain...Oh ya..it makes you forget...

Which I guess is a good thing in some cases. It makes you forget where the keys are, what your kids names are, birth dates, your phone number, name, etc..but it also makes you forget other things like your life before kids, your body before kids, your boobs before kids.

I used to have a pretty nice body, before I had 4 boys, I was slender and a nice high rack and firm ass..
Not anymore, now I have stretch marks, and a wide ass, and my boobs look like a couple of deflated balloons.

Don't get me wrong I would not change it for the world, I earned every stretch mark, every extra pound and every wrinkle in my boobs. I am just grateful for the mommy brain and the fact that I can forget what it all used to be like.

I think it gets worse the more kids you have which may be why my grandma is having trouble remembering things now. She had 8 kids. I only had 4 and I can barely remember things. I know I used to have a life, I can remember parts of it, some of it was pretty crazy too, maybe that is why I like to forget it now.  There are days when I can't even get out of the house because I forget why I was leaving. It is pretty bad. I gave my kids all J names so I can just start mumbling in gibberish and they all think I am talking about them. If I don't put my keys in the same place every day it is an hour of looking for them before we can leave the house. I have to make sure the baby bag is packed and at the door by my shoes so I don't forget that. I am lucky that I remember the baby half the time. Poor thing being the 4th kid he is lucky I still have a brain! I have never been one for lists I got it I know what I need, lately I need to make a list write it down on the calendar and make sure I check every day so as not to forget anything.

As I was saying I think we get mommy brain to forget, forget that we had a nice body and a life and nice things, and also what childbirth was like. If we kept all that in our brains there would not be enough room for the new memories you make of playing, and the concerts, and the games, and the smiles, and the hugs, and the I love yous. I guess mommy brain can be a good thing...now where did I put that publish button??

Shitty pants, 1000 mosquito bites and endless hours of crying..yay we're camping!

As a mom of 4 and full time parenting 3 under 6 I don't often get out of the house, my partner however has other ideas, which I don't mind, much, but now and then he gets an idea that although having good intentions never fully understands the repercussions of his actions until it is too late.

We went camping, for a night, with a 6, 3 and 8 month old. Now normally that might be enough said but let me tell you a bit about our adventures...

It started out innocently enough..wanting to get away for a couple of days. By the end we were ready to be home and we were only gone a day...

Packed what we could find for food and camping gear, not knowing if the air mattresses held air, (they didn't btw) not sure if the stove was going to work, not sure where we were going, we headed out..

We got to our first major stop at Rearguard Falls Provincial park BC. It is a spot I found a few years ago and continue to take friends to if I get a chance! I recommend you check it out. It is just a short hike down to the falls and it is not a big park not much to do there no picnicking or anything like that, just a lookout spot but what cool nonetheless. It is the furthest place up the Fraser river that the Salmon make it as the water comes to fast over the falls they cannot climb the ladder, depending on the time of year you might catch them trying to make it. This was a good spot for trying gold panning as Chase has found a new hobby, we think we might have even found some..not sure though as we don't really know what we are doing.

We thought we might find a campground near Jasper so we headed that way next, on the way we spotted a campground off the highway that looked pretty empty and an elk was standing right at the entrance so we saw that as a good sign and pulled in. Turned out they had room and was cheap $16/ night. We drove around and found our site and set up camp. We paid for our site and headed back to Jasper to get supplies as we didn't have much for supper stuff. I recommend buying your supplies beforehand as Jasper is not cheap, but a lot cheaper than the icefield's but I will get to that. We get back to camp and make dinner for the boys. While trying to build a fire I look over and see Jaxan standing funny and I ask him what's wrong and he proceeds to tell me that a big poop just came out of his bum. I check his pants and sure enough he is pooing his pants at the campsite. Luckily there was plenty of baby wipes on hand. I grabbed the boy stripped his pants off and cleaned him up right there at the campsite. I threw the pants and poop out as I was not going to try and deal with that mess in the van for the rest of the trip(the pants were old and ripped so I felt they were ok to throw out.) Got him in his jammies and things were all better. Took awhile to get the fire going so me and the boys went for a walk and checked out the lake and the area. We were in a pretty cool place, almost made the 1000 mosquito bites worth it. Did I mention to mosquitoes? They were huge! At one point I looked over at the baby and he had several of them on his head. ( I think they were trying to carry him away to feast on him at their leisure.)

After a sleepless night on a deflated air mattress and crying babies because he didn't have his purple blanket(Jaxan) we woke and I made breakfast, which turned out fairly well on our little camp stove and we ate and packed up camp as we still had a full day ahead of us. We planned on heading to Athabasca Falls and after that we were not sure. We headed back towards Jasper again and headed south to Athabasca Falls, along the way we hit a couple of geocaches and found some great spots for pictures. We made it to Athabasca Falls and took our time looking at the falls and taking pics. It is an amazing place and I am glad I took my boys to go see it! After the falls we had a choice to make continue to the icefields, or head north back home. We headed south and we are glad we did! When we got to the icefields it was amazing. I kind of remember going there as a kid, but to see it as an adult is something else! We told the boys they were visiting the ice age! They were looking for dinosaurs! We toured around on our own as we were trying to save a bit of money. Then we got hungry, boy was that a mistake. We decided to stop in at the Icefields building for lunch and $53 dollars later for grilled cheese sandwiches! We were none too excited, and the lunch was not that good either, if you are travelling there bring a lunch! We could have turned around again at this point and headed home or continue south and see more mountains and maybe visit with Sam and Lee. We chose south!

Heading south we saw some amazing mountains and stopped to take pics when we could, calling Lee to see if he was going to be home. No answer, we carried on. We couldn't hit any more geocaches as I didn't load any more on the gps device and we had no cell service, but regardless the trip was still fun! Even saw a frozen lake because we were so high up! In Banff we went to the Banff Fairmont Springs Hotel and showed the boys the big hotel. Found the Tim Hortons grabbed a coffee and headed to Calgary!

On the way Jaxan was complaining of a headache and owie belly so I asked him to rest and he tried but his belly was really hurting. We got to Calgary and stopped at Peter's Drive in as that is the place to get a burger and a milkshake. Jaxan refused to eat his still saying he has a sore tummy. We stopped in at Lee's place and Chase got to visit his puppy who he hasn't seen in a few years since he gave him to his brother to take care of. Sam freaked out seeing Chase! It was too cool! Meeting Lee was cool too! We didn't stay long as it was 8 pm by this point and we still had a 3 hour drive home. The drive home was nerve wracking because poor Jaxan cried most of the way because of his poor tummy but we would ask him if he needed us to stop and he would say he just wanted his own bed and his elephant. We made it home in record time and Jaxan went straight to the bathroom and let loose with an explosive bm that filled the bowl as the stench filled the air...poor guy. But we were home and all of us alive! We may even do it again some day!

my letter to my mla.

Dear Mr. Deron Bilous,

I am writing to you on behalf of Geo Mousef and his family. Geo is the little boy who was killed by alleged drunk driver Richard Suter, at Ric's Grill Monday night. I am sure you have heard the story. As a mother of 4 boys I am a huge believer in designated driving often times going out with my friends only to make sure they would have a designated driver and get home safe. Richard Suter is having a bail hearing tomorrow morning Thursday May 23rd at 10 am and if he receives bail he is then able to go out and celebrate with his friends and possibly kill another. We need to set a precedence with such a case and show Richard Suter and others who feel it is ok to drink and drive and kill babies that it is NOT OK! I hope you are behind the push to toughen the drunk driving laws and make it not ok for these dangerous people to get behind the wheel and hurt or even kill people. Geo will never know the freedom of being able to sit on a patio and enjoy a drink with his friends and family in a responsible manner like the rest of us. His mother will never see him graduate or tie his tie for his wedding. His father will never be able to show him how to shave and fix a car. All because a selfish man took his life. I invite you to join the group Justice for Geo on facebook and show your support for tougher drunk driving laws. You can view the group here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/Justice4Geo/ . Mr. Bilous please show your support and Help us to stop mothers and fathers from ever having to bury another child due to someone else's selfishness.

Sincerely

Jodie Velthuizen.

The race is on!

Man am I glad spring is finally here! We love geocaching and with 3 little ones it is way easier in the months there is no snow on the ground. For those of you who do not know what geocaching is we like to explain it as treasure hunting all over the world. People everywhere have set out treasure boxes for you to find using a gps enabled device. We have been doing it for a couple of years now. I am up to 212 found! Today we set out to see if we could be the first to find on a couple but was beat by mere minutes. I found out about it a few years ago while planning our annual ladies weekend, my cousin gave me the idea and so me and my mom tried it a few times to see if we could make it work for our weekend. We did and it was fun (although some in my family still believe they don't exist simply because they didn't find one). A couple of years ago I got a gps device and we started looking for them as a family. Last year I got a membership and then I could get emails telling me when a new one had been published. This opened up a whole new game FTF! (First to find) We managed to get a few of them last year. One even had a nice FTF prize of a canada flag travel bug, it gets tracked as it passes through each geocache and people can move it around. Right now it is in Quebec so far it has travelled 1889.3 miles. We left it in drumheller! There was another cacher who would beat us to the FTF quite often so to get one close to home was a great feeling! Today we set out to find a couple new ones the popped up, but we missed both of them, one our friend found first..foiled again...lol It was fun looking for it. This one was disguised as a tree hiding in a tree go figure. Many more geocaching adventures planned for this summer, the great thing is you can get out and get exercise and find treasure! If you want to know more about it go here--->www.geocaching.com Maybe we will see you out on the trails!

A new venture!

I have recently started a new venture, making little toys for babies and selling them online. I don't expect to become rich from it but I hope to be able to make a bit of money at least. The site I have chosen to sell my items is called All about boys. The online store is powered by ecwid and I have paypal set up also. Not bad for my first day! I have also made a few items already as a test run for my new machine and pattern. I'm hoping to be able to use the money to help in publishing my books. A lot of hoping and hard work involved but I'm not afraid of hard work. I also decided to try something new in that I have entered the mothers day walk for breast cancer, www.mothersdaywalk.ca. I am hoping to raise $200 before May 5th. I am already a third of the way there thanks to my amazing family and I know I can make it the rest of the way. I am walking with a good friend of mine. She helped me to deliver 3 of my boys and is a mom herself so this is an important cause to us. If you would like to help you can click the link above and donate to team Jodie Velthuizen! Here's to new ventures! A new year and new experiences!

I'm not ready to have a teenager...

But I guess I'm too late as he has been a teenager for a few months already..when did this happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that I gave birth to this little baby? Who is taller than me now by the way...when did that happen? When I saw him last he was shorter then me and he comes back for a visit and now he looks down on me..As teenagers go he is a pretty good one, gets good grades and does what he can to help out and listens to his parents..I couldn't have asked for a better kid..but did he have to grow up? I am not ready yo be a parent to a teenager I am still trying to parent myself! He has been my greatest gift and my biggest fear. All my kids are a great gift and each have brought me something special in their own ways. I know they are each on the way to greatness and I could not be a happier mom, I just hope to be able to continue with lessons they have each brought to me. I love you Jorian and I miss you..slow down ok..

Time away..

I realized this morning that I had not blogged in awhile. The reason I started this blog is to become a better writer and to share my experiences as a mom and recipes that I love. I guess I haven't had much to say...I did make some great recipes lately, most of them come from the web I will try and include the links to them in a future blog. I had my oldest boy home for a bit for spring break and that went pretty good, I miss him so much, I have always shared custody with his dad but had primary residence and now he has been at his dads  for a couple of years, he decided he wanted to go spend some time at his dads when he was 10 and I have always let him make choices for  himself so that he learns what it means to live with the consequences of your actions. He has been doing amazing there and I am so proud of him. His grades have come up and he is excelling at his studies, even joined an improv group! As a mother it is difficult to let your babies go off without you and seeing him excel without me is even tougher as I have always considered myself a good mom. Maybe even a great mom. Not perfect by any means but I have great kids and in order to have great kids they have to have a great mom right? Seeing him take off and enjoy his life at his dads is awesome and even though I have a bit of a tough time when I say goodbye to him I know he is going where he is loved and  respected as a person. I guess I can choose to look at it from the angle that he is excelling because of the love and encouragement that I gave him growing up, which I did give him lots of, but I also struggled through a crack addiction when he was younger and chose to send him to his dads for a year while I went through recovery. As a parent we hope that we make the best choices for our kids and help them to become independent and have the skills to succeed and when you see that child grow and make good choices for themselves it is an amazing feeling. I hope to see him sooner this time and be able to hug him a little bit longer as he is still my baby even if he is 13 years old.