ketchup kid

sometimes - I think that maybe I should just put andrews ketchup in a sippy cup... it would be less of a mess. that's all he eats when it's on his plate and he just licks his hands like crazy and makes such a mess!!

ABOUT ME - I’m NOT going to let Dyslexia keep me down!

I have a blog about Children Books for sisters in my ward at church back home. I made it cause I wanted to make a kids book club for our kids. I wanted people read get inspired to go check out books at the library and blog about the books they loved or didn’t. My sisters look at it from time to time, but I’m not sure if anyone finds it helpful or not, or if anyone in my ward even looks at it. no posts anything but me, or comments either. Sometimes, I feel overlooked by my ward. I want to be apart of something, I want to be apart of people lives… and when I feel like a party of 1 (as I sometimes do because of that blog) it can make me feel really lonely, sad, and left out. BUT, MOST of the time, it makes me happy, just because I LIKE doing it! I feel like I finally found a project I can LOVE to do that challenges my dyslexic side as the same time. When I read children books and then blog about it, I know I leave behind blogs about books that have many spelling mistakes. I finally decided today to introduce myself telling others about my dyslexia. I felt good about doing it. I thought I would go ahead and post it here too just in case someone ever reads this and wonders “what’s up with this idiot? She’s cant spell!”
This is what I wrote for my book blog (just in case if any of you want to check it out sometime… it’s “http://pfwkidsbookclub.blogspot.com/”)

“I’m NOT going to let Dyslexia keep me down!

I’m sorry to interrupt the stream of book reviews, but I felt that I needed to say this sooner or later…
My name is Nikki Workman, and if you’ve been reading anything I’ve posted, you might have noticed a few spelling/grammar mistakes, even maybe a lot of them. I am dyslexic and it’s a struggle I’ve with all my life and have had to learn to live with. It’s something that has brought shame, tears, and fears to my life that I would not want to wish on anyone. BUT I try to not let it get me down no matter what people say when it’s made evident I don’t read/spell or even talk as well as I would like too.

I started this blog, as hope to inspire and empower mothers to read to their children. I love childrens books. I have a real passion for them. When I was a kid and couldn’t read very well at all, I would rely on the artwork to tell me the story. As I grew, I found out that I had a gift for art. I love to do pencil sketches and ink drawings, and do a little painting every now and then. I hope someday to develop my talent so that I too may write and illustrate my own childrens books. I’ll just have to have one heck of an editor! (lol) My own husband does a very good job of spell checking for me when we can. But it’s hard waiting to DO something because you want to make sure it’s spelled right before you post. I try my best, and just post most of the time.

I am determined (whether it’s spelled right or not), to share my thoughts and ideas with the world. I believe I have a lot to give, and I will not let dyslexia keep me down!

I hope that you enjoy reading my blog about books and welcome you to share your own favorite books on this blog.
Happy reading!
-Nikki Workman”

Mischief

Andrew has gotten to that mischief stage. He’ll go into my room, shut the door and not make any noise. I know exactly what he’s doing, so I open the door and I see him in a panic shut my side-table draw closed (where I keep my pens, journal and Canada stickers) whip around and wave and yell at me to go away. I of coarse walk up to him to guide him out of the room and he repeatedly grunts and points to the door as if to tell me “to leave!” And sometimes he even gets a littl gutsy and says "GO!" and pushes me out of the room and shut the door on me. I still go back in and get him back out. we do this back and forth for a while.
But he’s starting to get smarter, now when I open the door, he shuts the draw and sprints to the window as if he’s been looking out of it all this time. I give him a moment where he thinks I’ve fallen for his little plan, I walk up to him with a smile “aw, you’ve been looking out of the window, how sweat! Now get out of the room you little terd!”.

raining

it's raining again. Andrew wants me to open the window so he can HANG OUT of it... don’t worry, at least we all learned something from Michael Jacksons baby-over the balcony incident. I’ve very afraid of kids falling out of second story windows. I get down to kneel right next to them when it’s opened. When I’m tired of kneeling, we shut the window and Andrew climes up and sits on the air conditioner so he can till look out the window.
We just opened the window for a while to see the rain, and smell the air… it smells like cow poop. Yum. Derick actually LOVES the smell of farm land right after a rain… lol. I still don’t understand everything about him.
A funny note about the smell of cow poop. When we finally found that Wal-mart I told you about thats only 4 minutes away. Well it’s RIGHT on the edge of the Mananite farm lands. And as soon as we got out of the car Amanda said in the most happy voice. “I smell poop!” it made us laugh, we just didn’t expect her to say that.

Toy Story 3 - 3 thumbs down

We saw Toy Story 3 yesterday (in 3D) and we did NOT like it at all!!
Amanda actually screamed and cried from being scared! That’s never happened. And it was SO dramatic, and sad… so depressing! At that pinnacle moment where they just hold each other – OH MY GOSH! This is a KIDS movie what are they doing!!??? Toys yelling at a Baby-toy “she doesn’t love you!” --- uh!? Did they EVER think that to a CHILD, seeing a “baby figure” being mistreated and abandoned and rejected wouldn’t be mentally scaring!? If you haven’t seen it/or you liked it, I’m sorry if this is ruining anything for you, we just did NOT like it. all well, at least we got some dress up glasses out of it.

not a lot of posts for a while

Hey family and friends, I just wanted to let yall know I may not be doing a lot of posts right now. I’m in the process of getting a different laptop. My current laptop is malfunctioning a lot and has a lot of breaks on the screen and keypad. We’re actually bought me a new laptop yesterday, but I’m not liking it at all! The typing pad is very different and I don’t like how it’s placed out. We might be returning it and getting a new computer. During this transition time, I don’t want to upload pictures from my camera and blog about them yet. I want to get my new computer first. So I may not be doing a lot of posting. At least not a lot of posts with pictures.
Just wanted to give yall heads up.

Ooh La La ~ day at the spa!

After swimming we get our baths and then we read books and go to bed, but after bath time yesterday, Amanda said she wanted to look just like the Fancy Nancy sign on our bathroom door.
We’re big fans of the Fancy Nancy books, and in one of the books there’s this picture of Nancy laying on the bathroom floor at a hotel all decked up like it’s a spa. Before we came up here I copied that picture and laminated it, and once when we got here, I placed it on our bathroom door in our hotel to make a little more fun for our stay here.
Amanda wanted to do just want Nancy was doing in the picture so we laid out the bath towels under the heat-lamp in the bathroom (I mean “washroom” that’s what they call it here) and we wrapped her hair and body in towels and she looked JUST like fancy Nancy! She laid under the heat-lamp for a while and then wanted me to take her picture next to fancy Nancy! How cute is that?

It’s a “Canadian thing”, eh?

Take a look at the 100 speed sign… look again, it ISNT miles per hr! (the US are the only ones who use that) it’s kilometers per hr here. It just makes you look twice when you drive by.


You may be wondering why this hard to see pic is here. I’ll update a better one when I get one. But if you drive in TX and look at the merging roads you’ll notice a very small difference. In TX when a merging lane comes to the main road, you have a dotted line b/w you and then openness and then the conversion of the 2 lanes and then back to 1 main lane. But that momentary openness usually forces the cars to make space for each other. Here, there is just a dotted line and it’ll takes you all the way to the very end of your lane. Something that caught be off guard cause I thought I had more time to merge. No worries though we’re fine!

The stop and go lights are a little different here too. Here they’re vertical and the green light is at the bottom and it and the yellow light are a lot smaller than the red light. And when you get a turn-left arrow, it blinks at you.

This one drove me crazy, so far (and remember derick’s been here before) we can NOT find a post-office-OFFICE! The post offices are a PART of regular drug stores that you have to go inside, go all the way to the back and then get help from the people who work there in the store. Stamps to the US are $1 and you have to also place this blue sticker on the envelope, and I’ve been told that it could take a week to get to the states. I did my card shopping and addressing before I got here cause I wanted to make sure I could get what I wanted, but it’s going to be tricky sending them, so please be patient with me!

It’s funny how even common restaurants that started in the US then go world-wide get a little bit of the other countries influences on them. The menus are NOT the same by the way. They’re menu and ingredients are way healthier and smaller, but they do not at all taste better! And you can’t get a good hot & spicy sandwich anywhere!
Can you see the difference in these restaurants logos??

Almost all the businesses here use these neon close to the curb signs to tell people about the hot sales of the month type stuff.

I just think this is so funny looking. But it’s a sign to lead you to the visitor;s information center. But I still think it looks like they forgot what they were suppose to post there so they just put up a ? mark.

I just thought this was another funny sign. I think it’s the sign for a phrat house (spelling?) . There are a lot of universities around here.

It’s raining it’s pouring

Well I got sick with a cold 3 days ago, Andrew too (we’re both doing a lot better just so yall know) and well I didn’t feel like doing much cause I’m sick, and it’s raining a LOT outside yesterday so we decided to go for a drive in the rain and see what we could see. and yeah I know, driving in the rain is not a good idea, but it was our first Saturday together and we wanted to do SOMETHING. Don’t worry I promise we won’t do it all the time. What can I say, derick and I like to live dangerously lol. The locals tell me it rains here a lot, so I guess the kids and I will buy some rain gear while we’re here.
We drove down to the big downtown part of waterloo (or is it kitchener… all well it’s “down town” whatever it is). And there were SO many beautiful buildings. I’m hoping we’ll take a walk down there this afternoon so I can take some better pictures.
Places like the picture you see above you of the old house with the ivy on it. THIS is the type of house I always imagined me living in someday. I LOVE THIS HOUSE. Sadly it’s not even being used as a house anymore, it’s an office building, but it’s it lovely!? It looks like the kind of house ANY idea book character would live it.
The “Chapters” is a picture of the book store here that is just like Barnes & Noble. They have such a GREAT kids section there, I love it!