October

What??? It’s the middle of October??? I’m not sure if the warm weather has me fooled into thinking that it’s still summer, but I sure don’t feel like Halloween is 2 weeks away!

The past month has been lots of fun as we’ve been enjoying an abnormally warm autumn. In fact two weekends ago we were at Auntie Heather and Uncle John’s place for Thanksgiving, and the kids were swimming in the lake! We also spent an afternoon with the Millen family in Teeswater and got a fun shot of all the great-grandchildren. You will find it in the slideshow, wow, what a crew!

Since our return, strep throat has been running through the house. Naomi was off school last week and just yesterday Lilah came down with it. I’m so hoping that it will escape Myles and that it’s not a prediction of what is to come this winter!

Myles is really chatting up a storm these days. He’s definitely the comedian in the family as his little personality is starting to come through. Whenever he thinks that it’s time for everyone to have a good laugh, he tips his head back and starts to let out this loud and raucous laugh. He also has figured out that he’s bigger than Lilah and has made torturing her a routine event in our house. We’ve finally gotten beyond the part where he tackles her to the floor and bites her bum. Now he tackles her and gives her an enormous hug. Myles and Naomi share a really cool bond. Often I will find that he does things for her that he will not do for me. He loves to hold her hand and often calls her over when he’s navigating a hill or set of stairs. It’s pretty cool to see how much he adores her and she adores him.

This past Monday the girls, Myles and I went on an “expedition” through the forest trails that surround our house. It’s the first time that the girls have walked the entire 3km and Myles actually walked half of it. We enjoyed collecting acorns, sweeping the forest trail with weed-brooms and counting deer tracks. It was so much fun to watch them explore and to not have to rush.

Looking back 4.5 years ago we had no kids and Joel had hair – can you imagine!! How quickly life has changed and our worlds have evolved. It’s nice to now be able to enjoy what we have, as opposed to wish and pray for it (well except for Joel’s hair).

One last funny story about the past. Those who knew us when we got married, also probably know that we received lots of Home Depot gift cards as gifts. Unfortunately they were stolen from my van a few months later when I went to use them. Recently though, we were purging some old boxes and started going through some cards we had received from our wedding. Imagine my surprise to have a $100 Home Depot Gift card fall out of one of the cards! Then a few minutes later, another! So . . . we are $200 richer at Home Depot. Not sure what we’ll buy now, but the feeling was almost better than when we opened them the first time!

So photos will follow next week (or perhaps next month). Who's kidding who -- it took me over a month to post what I wrote last month because I couldn't find the time to upload the pictures from my camera! Hopefully I'll be more on the ball this month.

Cheers to all!
Karen

August September Photos

Where does the time go?

So Myles is now in a big boy bed, and yesterday as I was taking down his crib I had this sudden thought. "Hey, there are no more babies in our house and there won't be a crib in our house again!" The thought came with a fleeting pang of sadness and then an exhilarating feeling of "wow, this time next year I might not have a diaper bag anymore either!"

Naomi started senior kindergarten this week and was thrilled to be with her friends again. It was amazing to see her excitement at heading off to school this year. Even more amazing is hearing her little mind explore new things. Not surprising, school has added a whole new level of vocabulary to her repertoire again. A conversation from two evenings ago went something like this . . .

mom - "Naomi and Lilah, dinner is ready. Please go and wash your hands."
a few minutes later . . .
mom - "Naomi and Lilah, please go wash your hands and get ready for dinner."
a few minutes later . . .
mom - "NAOMI AND LILAH, GET IN THE BATHROOM AND WASH YOUR HANDS!"
Naomi - "Oh mom, just RELAX!"
A conversation and a few minutes later,
Naomi -- "So what's for dinner?"
Mom -- "Noodles"
Naomi -- "Do I like those noodles?"
Mom - "Of course you like those noodles"
Naomi, getting ready to take a bite -- "Well, here goes nothing!"

Joel being the financial guy has also been trying to teach the girls about money these days. The latest lesson came this morning as he dropped Naomi off at her classroom.

dad - "Ok Naomi, time for me to go to work and for you to go to school."
Naomi - "No dad, I'm coming with you to work."
dad - "Naomi you can't come to work with me today."
Naomi - "But I've been to work with you before."
dad - "Well not today."
Naomi - "What's that jingling in your pocket? Money? Well let me see."
dad pulls money out of pocket.
Naomi - "Ok dad, I'll have one and then you can go to work."
dad hands over the loot that he won in a 50:50 draw at a golf tournament yesterday.
Naomi - "Thanks dad, see ya, have a nice day!" (Dad grumbles, nice doing business with you).
Mom hears the story and thinks that perhaps she should be taking lessons from her eldest!

Lilah is also starting to demonstrate a spark of humour too. Her latest is "Trust me mom"! She and Naomi have been cooking up a plan to get her into Jr. Kindergarten early. Lilah is completely ready, but must wait another year in Nursery school before she can "ride on the bus and go to big girl school". This is quite disappointing to her, so she's constantly asking when she's going to be big. Yesterday Naomi decided she was going to start "teaching her" all the stuff she needs to know to get into Kindergarten. Stuff like, "Lilah, repeat after me. . . " and "Lilah, I'm the leader today and you can come with me to hand in the attendance". She's also trying to teach her all the songs that are in the typical kindergarten repertoire. Everything from "There was a farmer had a dog and Dingo was his name oh", to "Sing oh well, Sing Oh well, Oh well, Oh well" (hint - oh well = noel).

Myles is also testing new language skills these days. We're starting to progress from "NO" to "NO tankwoo". His favorite person in the world seems to be Naomi, and when he can't find her he calls, "OMI, whe-aah-oo". Bet you are thinking right now that understanding the written toddler vocabulary is almost as hard as the spoken!

Oh where does the time go?? It seems like only yesterday that I was buying a crib for a hypothetical little gal who wasn't even born yet. Now our house is filled with babbling little one's. While I might complain that it's craziness, taking down the crib this week reminded me that it's also a dream come true!

Enjoy these pictures of the last days of summer: the Klassen Christmas in August, beach days, a trip to Sara and Tim's cottage (where we caught lots of fish), the Zhuzhou Gals travelgroup reunion, a trip to the Bowmanville zoo (where Myles overcame his fear of hungry baby goats) and kicking around the house.

Cheers,
Karen

Summer 2007

Cool Slideshows!

All Systems A Go!

Whew, where is the summer going? Long time no blog, eh?

Well the past few months in the Klassen home have been incredibly busy. Naomi finished school, Lilah celebrated her third birthday, Myles is chatting up a storm, Joel FINALLY has our pool 99% finished and I just finished a month long course in Business Planning while starting my own business at the same time! So we're just coming up for air now and I'm getting a moment to update my bloggy friends.

So Naomi is now a "Senior" (kindergartener that is) and quite proud of it. Her reprot card was excellent and we are really proud of her. It's amazing to see our eldest growing up so fast. Naomi has been enjoying daycamp at Fellowship Baptist Church this month as well. I remember a day when it was hard to get Naomi to leave the house. Now it seems that she can't get enough of her friends, so they are either here or she's at their houses. Already a socialite!

Lilah had a blast celebrating her third birthday at the end of June. Pictured here with her posse, Lilah enjoyed a whale of a beach party with her friends. I can't believe that she is three years old! At times she seems so much older than that and then other times it seems like just yesterday we were in China adopting her. Lilah's three year old smarts are coming out more frequently too. While she LOVES anything Dora, she's recently discovered that Dora is not cool in the older crowd. Much to my chagrin, she's already being influenced!

Myles gets cuter by the day and is now demonstrating the attitude that goes along with cuteness. Words are coming fast and furious, along with a love for music, cars and anything that goes grrrrr. I think that Myles is going to be the musical one as he's got a real ear for anything with a tune. When my Ipod is on, he's dancing. When his music is playing, he's dancing. In fact yesterday we were hanging out on the hammock and he started strumming the ropes to make his own music.

Joel . . . well I think he's just so thrilled that the pool is pretty much finished. A few more sheets of lattice will finish off the job -- one which far exceeded both our level of expertise when it comes to being handy, and also one that far exceeded our timeline. One good note is that while the project was tough, it was WELL worth it. I think that there have only been three days in the past month that we've not used the pool. Myles is fearless (scary actually), Lilah is overcoming her fear of water and can now be found bobbing around with her waterwings, and Naomi is becoming quite the little swimmer - dog paddling around the pool for hours. I don't think we've ever been happier to see the end of a project though. Let me tell you that if someone offers you a free pool, make sure that you have handy friends or are handy yourself. It is a BIG project - but like I said, well worth it.

We have enjoyed the company of my longtime friends Sharon, Len and Dylan for a weekend in July. It was so much fun to reconnect with their family as we haven't seen each other in almost 2 years. Dismal when you consider that we've known each other since Sharon and I were 8 year old swimming buddies!

We've also been to Auntie Heather and Uncle John's place one weekend this summer. Naomi caught her first fish (pictured below) and Myles learned to drive the boat. All of us really enjoyed the lake and the hospitality that Heather and John always show us. It really is like a piece of heaven there!

And now for my big news. All Systems A Go is the title of this post, and also the name of my new business. I have dreamt of venturing out into the world of entrepreneurship for some time now. I love the idea of using my talents to build relationships with clients that are all my own, and I also love coaching others to acheive success. Being an organized person, this business idea really came together over the past few months. Then in April I heard about a program to assist in business planning and decided to apply. The timing has been perfect and I spent every morning for the month of July in a class designed to help me write my business plan. The course was intense, but really helped me to focus on my long term goals.

As a business consultant and Professional Organizer, I offer consulting, coaching, hands-on organizing and training for small/medium sized businesses and corporations. I help businesses identify areas of disorganization that are inhibiting growth, then create a plan to overcome these obstacles. Mostly my business will focus on helping businesses and individuals manage time, use technology, track projects and activities, organize workspace, design and organize filing systems and simplify paperwork/systems in an overall effort to improve productivity and meet organizational goals.

I already have signed a contract with Pfizer Animal Health and also have two other clients that I'm working with. Since each of my clients is in a different industry, I am really enjoying the diversity that running this business offers. It is very exciting and I am loving the feeling of more balance in life.

Onwards and upwards! So that's about what we've been up to in the past couple of months! I'm off to enjoy the last few days of summer before school starts again! Hope you all enjoy the new photos (and in a new format that I'm trying out).

Cheers,
Karen

Sweet Pea and the Brown Eyed Girls!

May 2007

We have been enjoying a few weeks of fun in the sun lately! The sunny weather has certainly been welcomed around here and the kids are outside for the majority of their waking hours.

Naomi has decided that at the ripe old age of 4, she should be riding her bike without training wheels. Mom spent an entire afternoon running up and down the 190ft laneway while Naomi tried to gain control over her balance. Then a friend showed us how to bend the training wheels up so that she could learn to balance without us running alongside. Thank goodness for friends!

Lilah has become quite proficient at riding her trike too - though she thinks that she's ready for the Dora two wheeler that she spotted at Zellers the other day. Since her birthday is just over a month away, we picked it up for her. Can't wait to see her face when she opens it up at the end of June!

Myles, who has discovered the freedom of walking in the past three weeks, wakes up in the morning and points to the patio doors. He would live outside if we'd allow it! Unfortunately his new found walking skills are still a little rusty and he's constantly sporting a new badge of honor. Two weeks ago he got his first black eye, then just as that was fading he tripped on the driveway. His forehead and nose are a mess of roadrash - poor kid! The good news is that he's learning body parts from all the boo boo cream on his nose and cheeks and forehead.

The other good news is that he was boo boo free for a recent photoshoot at my favorite photographer's studio. We had wanted to get 1 year old photos done and thought it would be fun to capture some of the girls as well. Turns out Myles didn't really want the focus on him anyhow, but a few goldfish later and the charmer returned so that we could get a few shots of the three kids. The end result was spectacular, as you can see from the photos below. I think my favorite thing about getting Gerri to take my kid's photos is that she always captures who they are in the pictures. From the special bond between two sisters, to the charming but active toddler, she knows how to document their personalities, quirks and nuances in a beautiful way!

So life with three crazy kids continues on. What suprises me is how quickly I forget the "age and stage" stuff that they go through even though our kids are all relatively close together in age. For example, I know that I shouldn't be suprised that at 13 months Myles is frustrated. After all, when nobody in your family understands that you ARE the KING of the house - that's gotta be frustrating! But I chuckle to suddenly recall that both Naomi and Lilah went through the exact same thing - and I had forgotten all about it.

Even more heartwarming is to listen to Lilah's vocabulary develop. Today's word of the day was "ponsible" as in, "Mom, you are (res)ponsible so you can find my shoes and get me some juice". Yeah, cute -- heh heh (sense some sarcasm here). :) And to think that Myles is right behind her and then I'll have THREE "ponsibilities" telling me what to do!

We are currently in a state of outdoor renovations. Papa Tom helped us two weekends ago with a Pergola on our backdeck. Our backyard faces northwest - so it gets pretty hot and sunny on our deck in the summer. The new pergola gives us some much needed shade. We are also working on redesigning our backyard to add a pool. Our friend Sara's parents have decided that they no longer want their pool, and are passing it on to us! Hooray for friends!

In preparation, we've enrolled the kids in swimming lessons and they are doing fantastic. After only one 8-week session, Naomi is now able to do the front crawl for a short distance and Lilah is overcoming her fear of being on her own in the water. This morning I saw her do a star float without reminding her teacher to not let go of her. Both girls have come a long way in a few short weeks. Myles loves the water and is no less of a daredevil in the pool than he is on land.