Wow 2 months!

I can't believe that two months has passed since I last updated the blog, but the weeks leading up to Christmas were incredibly busy and filled with lots of visiting, parties and fun.

Santa was good to all of us, but most especially to the kids. This is the first year that Naomi "got it" and watching her anticipation was fun to say the least. We were most proud of her when she decided to write a story for Christmas about her teacher, Santa and her dinosaurs. The story was full of imagination, and she did 95% of the writing herself aside from a bit of help sounding out a few words. Naomi's most proud to now be an author, and we are just plain proud!

Myles is now talking in 3 word sentences, so the holidays brought on a whole new set of "whas dat mommy?", "who dat mommy?" and "wowie".

A week before Christmas, Lilah got her adenoids out. She has increasingly had a difficult time breathing through her nose. Eating was a marathon, sleeping was noisy and a lisp was beginning to develop. Anyhow, this kid is a real trouper. As a day surgery, she was admitted to the hospital at 7am and discharged at 10am. Since she had a general anesthetic, I anticipated that she would be sleepy (or at least quiet), for the rest of the day. Much to my suprise (and chagrin), the kid kicked it into high gear and didn't miss a beat! I'm not even exaggerating when I tell you that she was more energetic than she had been in weeks.

The end of December brought about Naomi's fifth birthday - which she celebrated with seven of her friends at a Dinosaur themed "Almost Sleepover" party. For almost 364 days, she has been eager to turn five and the waiting is finally over.

So . . . here are some photos of our most recent session with Gerri and a bit later I'll post some other pictures from the past few months. Enjoy!

Trick or Treat

Our all Hallows eve has become a tradition of heading down to Cobourg's Ball Street neighbourhood with our friends, having a little party and then Trick or Treating together. The families who participate are all the moms and kids who we hung out with on an almost daily basis when our kids were smaller. Since school and our jobs now prevent us from getting together as often as we used to (or would like), it's nice to have a tradition that we can still maintain and really enjoy!

This year, it all began with a party at Doc Woodland's bone crunching office (he's the chiropractor dad of our friends TY and TJ, and he really gets into this holiday). After some pizza and the "Blonde Baker's Cupcakes", the Klassen cheetah, butterfly, tiger and their friends headed out for some T & T action.

The girls had fun, but it was Myles who cleaned up. He developed a new technique - which resulted in his gaining tons of loot. First, Myles would cheerfully climb the stairs of the house. Once he got the homeowner's attention, he would smile and turn around, climbing down the stairs sans candy. Of course this would elicit an "OH isn't he THE cutest" from the unsuspecting homeowner, who would then try to pile the candy into his bucket! So . . . for the last two weeks, Joel and I have been scarfing back the chocolate. After all, a 19 month old can't have THAT much candy! Thankfully, we're almost done. :)

Reminiscing!

Isn't it funny how you can forget a moment, then see a photo and be suddenly reminded of such fun. I was preparing to upload the pictures from last month from my camera to my laptop, when I came across some really great times!

A few weeks ago we went to the Quemby's house to catch frogs. Naomi has been crazy over all things furry or with reptile skin this summer - so our friends were kind enough to invite us over for a frog catching morning. What ensued was a lot of mud, a few frightened frogs and lots of fun. Suprisingly enough, it wasn't the photos of the frogs that scared me the most, it was the picture of the girls on the back of the little four-wheeler with their friend Simon driving. Yeah -- immediately I got a glimpse of life 10 years from now. SCAREY!

Naomi was also thrilled to see that Ben, Caleb and Kate have some terrific monkey bars on their fort. Guess what our $200 Home Depot windfall will probably go towards! Hopefully Adam can come over to help with the building.

Joel would probably say that even more scarey is the shoe fettish that Myles has lately. No kidding, the kid cannot go anywhere without shoes on. If you take them off, he just goes and finds another pair to wear. Most of the time, they aren't even his shoes. Since he and Lilah share the same sized foot, you can imagine Joel's dismay at coming home and seeing his son VERY PROUDLY wearing black patent leather with polka dots! Only more scarey was the day that he got out the barrettes!

We also headed to the Chinese Lantern Festival again this year and I've included some shots of that trip. The kids have been wanting to take a train for a while now, so we decided to catch the GO train in Oshawa. The train ride was a ton of fun - even when Myles decided to investigate the emergency bars that are conveniently located at toddler height and the conductor came screaming back to our car to make sure everything was OK on the way in. On the way home, Naomi's highlight was when the conductor asked her to make the announcment for our stop. "Next stop OSHAWA!"

The Lantern Festival was fun again this year. In fact I think that the kids enjoyed it even more this year. The shows were spectacular and we had to drag them away so that we could check out the lanterns. Would have been a more difficult thing except that Naomi spotted Baskin Robbins and we got sucked in. Last year we stopped in front of the panda lanterns and took a photo of the girls. When we got to the Panda's again, we decided to make it an annual thing and we lined them up. The resulting photo was hilarious - and typically serious, until the girls could no longer hold their serious looks and burst into giggles. I posted both pictures for your enjoyment. :)

So . . . that was fun and the memories were even better! Enjoy the pictures - I know that I did.

Cheers,
Karen

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