December Fun

Sooooo, where was I, let's see....
December 10 found us at the Milton Momstown holiday party.  Drew and Hunter both had a blast.  There was food, crafts, tunnels, a parachute, and Surprise!  Santa was there too, handing out presents!  Hunter wouldn't have anything to do with him, but Drew went right up and told Santa what he would like for Christmas ("you'd think he'd know by now, mommy, I've told him SOOO many times!").  It should be mentioned here, that Drew has asked for Diesel 10, some troublesome trucks and Diesel from Santa.  These are all "Thomas" trains and you'd think they'd be simple enough to find.  I went to our local Thomas "dealer" searching for "Diesel" in order to help Santa out this year.  Turns out, "Diesel" has been discontinued.  Lovely.  Told my wonderful husband and he immediately found one on e-bay.  We've ordered it, but it is coming from China, so might not be here in time for Christmas. 

The things we do for our children.

We loaded up the car the following day and headed to Pioneer village to have lunch with Santa.  We had a great time here.  Met up with L, N and the girls.  Lunch with Santa also includes admission to the grounds and a horse-drawn carriage ride through the village.  I'd never been to pioneer village.  We will definitely be back.  I really enjoyed myself, and so did the boys.  I didn't think they'd be as enthusiastic about the whole thing as they were. 

Once Hunter started freaking out, we decided it was nap time and headed for the door....stopped at the penny crushing machine for our souvenir and hit the road.  Our next stop was St. Catharines for the Hodgson's annual open house.  Both boys slept the entire way, with Hunter puking half-way along the journey.  We didn't really think anything of this though, as Hunter usually pukes at some point during a long car ride. 

We arrived in St. Catharines a little early, so we decided to head to McD's for an early dinner.  Drew looked a little pale and would not eat a thing.  Hmmmm, little bug must not be feeling well.  No biggie, we figured we'd head to Luc and Erin's, stay for a bit and then head home early. 

We were at their place for maybe 30 minutes.  The boys had enough time to open their gifts and play a little bit, when Drew tells me he's going to throw up.  I grab him, and run towards the bathroom....out steps a little girl in front of me, at the same exact moment Drew throws up.  So, not only is my little man barfing all over Erin's house right before all of her guests are about to arrive, he's throwing up on one of the guests.  Awesome.  I felt like such a heal.

I frantically start cleaning up, telling Drew it's OK, we'll get cleaned up and then head for home.  After 5 minutes, he was totally fine.  I mean, totally fine.  He was running around, had some 7-up, begging to stay.  I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning, because he never looked back.......so we stayed for a bit.  I didn't really get to visit with many people.  Spent most of the time running after Hunter.  Drew met some of the neighbour kids and played with them throughout the evening.  It was a great party, as usual, and it's always nice to see everyone....even if I don't get to visit much.

Sunday, the 12th, we took the kids to my mom's work x-mas party for kids.  There were hot dogs, cookies, ice cream, drinks, and chocolate.  What more could we ask for??  Santa was there, giving out gifts.  The boys seemed to have a good time....although, it did seem to drag on just a bit.  They had colouring/stickers for the kids to do at each table, but beyond that (and the eating) there wasn't anything else for them to do.

Wednesday morning I volunteered at Drew's school.  We made gingerbread cookies, and I was in charge of baking them.  Surprisingly enough, they turned out!  I had to leave right after they were baked, but apparently, they ran away!  Those sneaky gingerbread men.....

James dropped Hunter off with me at the school and then had to head straight back home to work in the barn all day.  We were shipping a few cattle out this day, and James had to sort them and get them ready.  Hunter and I headed for the mall to try and finish our shopping (which we were unable to do, I'm terribly indecisive when it comes to Christmas gifts).  James had everything ready and waiting for my dad when H and I got home.  A good thing too, because there was a message from my mom that the trucker would be arriving at 2:30 (we arrived home at 2:20) and we weren't expecting him until 5!!! 

I ran down to the barn to tell James, who promptly walked black mama and her newborn (well 1 month old) twins (Biff and Bash) out of the stall we had them in and into the barnyard.  My dad showed up, and they ran the bulls through, into the stall.  The trucker showed up, so they ran them out into the pen and then straight onto the truck.  It all went very smoothly.  In fact, it went so quickly, that when I saw my dad walking up from the barn and the trucker leaving, I thought something had gone wrong and they had given up.  My brother was planning on coming by after school to help and then everyone was going to stay for dinner at our house.  It was all done so early, that we texted Jamie to meet us at the Glen, dad left with a round bale, and James, Hunter and I took the dinner we were going to serve at our house, up to the Glen and had it there (Drew was already at the Glen, as my mom brings him home on the bus with her from school).

It's embarrassing, but I always shed a few tears when our cows/bulls are sent out.  I know it's the nature of the job, and it's the circle of life and blah, blah, blah, but I seem to grow attached to certain ones, and then have a hard time saying goodbye.

And there you have it.....the main events from this month so far.  We've got a few more things lined up for the next couple of days, and I will post about them soon...hopefully with a bit more detail.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 This month has been a whirlwind of Christmas fun, work and the everyday normal chaos that is our life so far.  I'll try to some it up in less than 500 pages.

November 26 found James and I getting all dressed up in our best sparkly (well, I was sparkly, James was not) holiday wear and headed to Woodbridge for James' work Christmas party.  We left the boys with James' parents made a quick getaway.  The evening was fun, meal was good, but James was sick so we left "early".  By early, I mean 10:30, which was when dinner was finished.  We got home and the boys were asleep.  We heard later, that there were some troubles getting them to sleep.....oh well, such is life.

Of course, the one thing I wanted to get from this night was a decent picture of James and I all dressed up.  The only way this was going to happen was if I hog-tied James and took the picture myself.  God-forbid he take a picture with just him and his wife.  Not that I'm bitter or anything.

December came around and we found ourselves at the Mountsberg Christmas town.  This year, we went with a momstown group.  Were it not for this momstown group, we would have missed out on Christmas town all together.  It was sold out to the general public within 5 minutes, and believe me, we TRIED!!!  Christmas town is where Santa keeps his cottage, and we were able to visit Santa and Mrs. Claus in their cottage, decorate cookies in Mrs. Claus' kitchen and have a horse and carriage ride to and from the activities.

We had a great time there.  Really hope we can get tickets next year.  Really, really hope they change their reservation system and it's not such a nightmare to get tickets.  Thank you to momstown.ca for allowing us to go with them.

I should mention here that Drew did not want to go see Santa on this day.  He was almost in tears the night before, saying he did not want to go see him.  I wasn't sure why at first, up until that point he seemed in love with the man.  Then I remembered the phone call.  The Optimist club of Georgetown had arranged for Santa to call all of the kindergarten students in the area.  We were told 3 dates and times that he may try calling on, and we were to be near the phone at these times.  All 3 of the times were times when we were going to be at the Glen, so I made sure to remind Santa of this. 

Sure enough, Santa called Drew at my parents house, asked how he was, asked how Hunter was.  The look on Drew's face was one of pure wonder, and sheer terror.  I'm sure he was thinking, "how the f@#$% did he know I was here????"  The day before, I had pulled the Santa card.  "Drew, Santa is watching, you need to try and be a better listener".  In fact, about an hour before, I had reminded him of this fact.  And then Santa calls him???!?!?!?  The poor guy.  Anyways, I'm pretty sure this is why Drew didn't want to go visit him at Christmas town.

James left Christmas town for work, and I took the boys to Burlington to pick up our photos from Natural Attraction Photography (with a side-trip to Ikea, of course).

My fav family photo from the shoot

The next major event on our calendar was picking out our Christmas tree.  We went to a tree farm on Derry road in Milton.  It was the first time we had been to this farm and it was awesome.  We picked out our tree from the barn (they didn't have many trees left to cut down in the field) and they sent it down this conveyor belt.....a HUGE hit with Drew.

Santa and Mrs. Claus were, of course, there.

And the highlight was Drew being allowed to sit on top of the van while James tied the tree to it.

"Mommy, I'm sitting on top of Hunter!!"

Once we got the tree home, Drew and James cut the bottom off of it and we placed it in it's stand.  The boys were quite disappointed that I would not let them decorate it right away.  I told them we had to wait until the next day so that it could settle.  Sure enough, at 6am the next morning, Drew was up all ready with his decorations.  We blasted the x-mas tunes and decorated that tree at 6am...then finished off with a dance party, cause it ain't an event if my kids aren't dancing.

The Santa train was next on our list of Christmas things to do.  We met my parents, James' parents, Lisa, Norm and the girls at the Inglewood train station for a magical train ride with Christmas carols, cookies, hot chocolate and a visit from Santa.

Why does this bearded man keep showing up everywhere I go???

Drew's Christmas concert was later on that week.  It was all of 15 minutes long, they sang 3 songs, but I cried through the entire thing.  It was pretty special for me.  As you may or may not know, I went to school there, so watching my child preform in his first concert in the same gym as I did many years ago was pretty special.  What made it even more meaningful was that my kindergarten teacher was in the audience as well.  She has a grandchild in kindergarten at Pineview and was there to watch the performance.  Life is funny sometimes, eh?

Hunter was great through the entire show.  I was nervous about taking him, figured he would end up on stage or something like that.  He sat with me the entire time, and clapped after each song.  My mom came to watch, as did James' parents.  My dad and James were at work and missed the whole thing.

This post brings us up to December 8.  I will continue on with my re-cap tomorrow night as it's getting late....stay tuned!  :)

Happy birthday Reina and Mike!

It's no wonder my kids are always sick, we are always on the go!

This past weekend was filled with so much fun and craziness, I had to drag Drew out of bed this morning to get him to school in time (Hunter, on the other hand, was happily awake at 5am....sigh).

Friday night was spent at Nana and Papa's house.  We ordered swiss chalet in, and enjoyed the coziness that their home provides.

Saturday morning we dashed to swimming lessons, where my mom and aunt Fran joined us.  The boys had a great time, and afterwards my mom, aunt Fran, the boys and I headed to Timmy's....James had to leave for work. 

I took the boys home where James' parents watched them and I left with my mom and aunt Fran for an afternoon of touring houses for the Milton Town and Country house tour.  My mom and I go every year and this year we decided to invite my aunt along.  She seemed to have a great time and I loved having her there.  We bumped into (as we do every year) Mrs Crocker (or Grannie Annie as she is now known as) along the house tour, always so fun to see her!
I love going on the house tour, it offers so many ideas for decorating for my favorite time of year.  It always leaves me with some jealousy issues though, that usually take me a few days to get over!  It's a fun day, and all the proceeds go to the United way, so it's for a great cause too!  We bumped in to one of our neighbours at Springridge (where we picked up a few Christmas items and some lunch) who was telling us about the friday night tour.  It's quite a bit more money, but you get taken around in a limo, are given appetizers and drinks at Springridge and apparently it really is a lovely evening.  Perhaps next year we'll shell out a bit more and try the evening tour out.  The other thing about it, I suppose, would be that you would get to see the houses in the dark, with all of their Christmas lights.
My mom and aunt Fran dropped me off at home and then they returned to the Glen, where my aunt Fran had a visit with my dad and then left for home.  My mom returned promptly to our house to pick Drew up for a quick visit at the Glen.  He was upset after swimming that Nana was unavailable for playtime and so promises were made for her to pick him up. 
Hunter and I picked Drew up and then continued on to the airport where we met James.  Scarborough was our next destination.  One of James' friends from work was having a get-together for everyone on James' team, spouses and children included!

It was a fun night.  The kids attemped to destroy the basement, I think that they failed in their attempt (I hope, anyways).  Drew had a great time playing cars but was not impressed with the movie that was on (the Disney one, with the superhero dog, the name escapes me right now).  It scared the crap out of him. 

The boys fell asleep on the way home, which is always the sign of a successful night.

Sunday was another busy day.  After lunch we headed to my aunt Sherri and uncle Bill's farm for Mike's 4th birthday party.  It was a kid's only party, but I stayed to help out (along with one other mother).  Both boys had a blast.  There were balloons, cars, trucks, tractors, cake, and ice cream.  Oh my!

From there, we headed back to Milton to another birthday party, this time for our friend Reina's 3rd birthday.  It was a Thomas the train themed party, so my boys were in heaven.  There was so much food, drink and Thomas fun at this party I thought my kid's heads were going to explode!  The highlight for Drew was Reina's new train table, which was set up in her room.  The kids spent most of their time up there, playing trains.  It was hard dragging them away from both parties, but I did it and once home, bedtime routines were done, and a glass of wine was poured for mommy!  I was wishing that James was there with me, it's so much easier with two of us!

All in all, a wonderful weekend.  I'm tired just thinking about it, but it was alot of fun. 

Here are a few of the shots taken at the momstown photoshoot I took Hunter to.  They are done by Katie at Natural attraction photography.  I haven't recieved the shots from our family photoshoot.  I'm hoping to recieve those soon.

The Christmas Festivities begin

Sunday I took Drew to a gingerbread house making workshop.  It was held in Erin at a little cooking shop on main street.  It was wonderful.  The owner of the shop served us hot apple cider, ginger snap cookies and it was all Christmasy and perfect.

The drive there, however, was not so perfect.  I had James drop Hunter off at my parents house on his way to work.  Drew got wind of his brother's solo visit to Nana and Papa's, and it caused a major visit from the green-eyed monster.  The whole ride to Erin Drew kept saying, "mommy, let's just go to Nana and Papa's, pleaaaassssse".  "Mommy, I don't like gingerbread houses".  "Mommy, can you go make the gingerbread house and I'll go play with Nana and Papa?".  I was very close to saying, "fine, forget the damn gingerbread house" and turning around.  I stuck to my guns though, and am I ever glad I did. 

Once we got there, there was an accident right near the store.  There were fire trucks and police cars.  This was the turning point.  My little man was so excited to see the flashing lights and the big trucks.  Once inside, we settled in and Drew was given a giant bowl of candy and some icing to stick it on to his house with. 

The entire time we were there, he kept telling me, "Mommy, I'm so glad we came.  I didn't think it would be this fun."  There were a few moments when I had tears in my eyes.

Upon arrival back at the Glen, we find out that Hunter had puked on his way up to Nana and Papa's, and had developed what looked like a nasty case of pink eye. 

Sunday night, Hunter was up most of the night, coughing and then puking, and then screaming.  The only time he would sleep during the first part of the night was on my chest.  While I was exhausted and frustrated, the cuddle time that I got was definitely priceless.

I took him to the doctor yesterday evening and it turns out he has pink eye and an upper respiratory infection.  He's got drops for his eyes now and has to be on antibiotics for the next 10 days.  My poor little man.

Fun-filled weekend

This weekend was so much fun! 

Saturday morning, the boys had swimming.  They did so great.  Drew swam underwater a little bit, and is getting more confident in the water.  It's so fun to see how proud he is of himself when he masters something new.  Hunter loves jumping into the water, even though he can't really jump yet.  He was watching the big kids jump in and then was trying to mimic what they were doing, only he couldn't get himself off the ground.  It was soooo cute!

Tim Horton's was our next, and usual, stop after swimming lessons.  Nana and papa joined us, and we had the usual timbit brunch.

We had a date that afternoon at Lowville park.  We met Katherine Mcintosh of natural attraction photography to have a family photo shoot done.  We had originally planned to have these family shots done during the momstown photo shoot day at Kelly's house a few weeks earlier, but Drew was sick.  We had a fun time at Lowville, and I'm hoping we got some great shots.  If they are anything like the "teaser" she's given us, they should be great!

We got home in time to have a bit of playtime before our next outing of the day.  Drew and I were outside, hiding from the bird-feeder so we could watch the birds eating the food we had put out for them when who should pull up, nana and papa!

They were actually hoping we would still be out, as my dad was planning on fixing the roof of the barn and didn't want the boys to see him climb the barn (and get any ideas that they could do it themselves!).  The show must go on though and kids or no kids, that roof needed to be fixed!

James went out to help my dad and the kids and I headed inside with nana.

My dad amazes me sometimes.  The man is in his 60's and there he is, scaling roof-tops.  I'm in my 30's and there is no way in hell you'd catch me up there.  He got a few of the spots fixed, there are a few spots left.  He's got to take some pieces up with him the next time he goes to repair what's left.                                   

Our next stop of the evening was to our friend's house for an evening campfire play date.  Colin and Kelly have a beautiful property on the escarpment in Milton.  We joined a few of our friends there, and had a wonderful evening watching our kids play together, chatting, roasting marshmallows, eating pizza and having lots of fun.  Drew and Hunter had a fabulous time, and James and I did too!

Sunday morning we had planned to leave right away for Toronto to visit Lisa, Norm, Katie and Julia but we had an emergency call that nana and papa were stranded at the casino as they had locked their keys in their truck (gasp...not stuck at the casino!  LOL).  We drove up to the Glen and then drove back to Mohawk to deliver their 2nd set of keys to them.  On to Toronto from Mohawk.  I was very tempted to put a couple coins in the slots while I was there, that's how millionaires are made, right???  But I didn't......guess we'll never know what could have been.  Sigh. 

We arrived in Toronto and the kids immediately fell right back into playing together as if they'd just seen each other yesterday.  It always amazes me how well they get along.  It's so relaxing to get together with them, because the kids can entertain each other for hours.  We had pizza for lunch (James got yelled at by the crazy pizza man....apparently we should have "seen" him standing outside.  I'm afraid we have not developed our x-ray powers yet, my friend).  The girls had swimming lessons that afternoon so we headed home.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us at our house.  They watched the kiddies for us, while we went out on another date afternoon.  We went for a walk, got some groceries and had dinner at the Ivy Arms in Milton.  It was a very nice evening.  There has been some tension in our house lately.  It's hard navigating the whole, "2 parent working" scenario.  Not that I'm working full-time or anything, but farm work always gets put on the back-burner and it frustrates James (don't worry, the cattle are being taken care of, it's just all the little things that are not).  It was nice to get away and talk about things and clear the air a bit.  We also went to the Toyota car lot to have a look at cars.  It's about time we retire the Echo, and so we are looking for a replacement.  Car shopping is not the funnest thing in the world, I find the whole process confusing.  It's hard to know what's best, when car salesmen always seem like they are lying to you.

There you have it, another weekend gone.  This week will be full of work, putting up Christmas decorations, and spoiling my boys.  I think a trip to Toys R Us might be in order.  This working mama is feeling a guilt-driven shopping spree for the boys is in order!

Serves me right

Today was a busy day.  It started out early this morning at Drew's school.  I took him to school and then stayed and volunteered in his class for an hour and a half.  I did some photocopying and sorting for his teacher and then helped out with their literacy centres.  It was great, because I was able to see Drew in his school environment and meet some of his friends.  I'm also a strong believer in the benefit of parental involvement in schools, so this is the first step along that path.

From Pineview I drove home to pick Hunter up (who was home with James).  We headed straight to Milton to join our friends at preschooler playgroup.  It's a bit weird attending this group now, without Drew.  I started attending the group before Hunter was born.  The ladies are wonderful though, and Hunter is loving the fact that he gets to go and play with other kids. 

After playgroup we met James at Subway for lunch, and then parted ways with him as he left for work.  We headed home and Hunter had a quick nap.  This is where the "serves me right" plays in my story.

I posted on facebook how great my day was going, how wonderful my life was, and blah, blah, blah, roses and butterflies, blah, blah, blah.

Hunter wakes up, and we head upstairs for a quick bath.  He's playing away in the tub and then all of a sudden I notice what I think is corn floating in the tub......followed by other indescribable items in the water.  Hunter had pooped in the bathtub!

It was so gross, but so hilarious at the same time.  I pull him out of the tub, dry him off, and slap a diaper on him.  Then I start fishing the poop out of the water, while Hunter starts dumping the bathroom garbage out, and grabbing everything in sight.  Not the easiest clean up in the world, but I got the job done nonetheless.

So, lesson was learned.  When you post things on facebook, it will come back to bite you in the ass later.  Got it.

Happy Halloween

A few weeks with no posts.  This is starting to become a habit. 

I've been working quite a bit.  I walked into a grade 3 classroom last week to a greeting of, "are you an alien?"  "Guys, I think she's an alien".....I almost burst into tears and walked right out.  Later on, I read to them from the chapter book that their teacher has been reading.  It was entitled, "our teacher is an alien".  Aha.  It all made sense. 

It's been a struggle to figure out where to take the kids while I'm working.  The nature of my work (supply teaching) is such that it is not predictable.  It's possible to work every day in a week some weeks and then no days other weeks.  This is really the first year, since I've had kids, that I'm searching out work and trying to get as many days as possible.  We're not really sure what to expect in terms of number of days.  Because of this, we can't pay for daycare, as I'm not willing to put the kids in care and be at home, not working.  I'm lucky in that, James has a schedule where he works 5 days on and 4 days off.  I try to work on the days that he is off, and then if there are days where he is working, James drops the boys off with my mom at 12 on his way to work.  She then takes them on the bus with her.  It's hard to figure it all out, but it seems to be working so far.

This past weekend was Halloween weekend.  Saturday we took the kids swimming and then were going to head to the Milton "tots on parade" event, but decided to go to the Georgetown one, as we didn't think that Hunter would stay awake for the drive to Milton.  Tots on Parade happens on main street and is where businesses give out candy.  It happens during the day and is designed to be a less "scary" trick or treating experience for the younger children.  The kids had a lot of fun, I was a bit taken a back by the number of people there.  I was not expecting it to be that busy.  Milton was probably a gong show!

Once we got our loot from the Tots on parade we headed to nana and papa's to show them our goodies.  We didn't have much time there though, had to get back home as James' parents were coming over.  Once they arrived, James and I headed out to spend the afternoon just the two of us.  We really need to do more of that.  We went for walk in Milton, had some beers, ice cream and cupcakes.  We went to chapters and then went out to dinner.  We were home in time to feed the boys their dinner....and were completely refreshed.  Sometimes you just need some time away.

Sunday was halloween.  We headed to James' parents for lunch and to show them the kids in their costumes.

From James' parent's place we headed to the Glen.  We ordered pizza, and then James, Jamie and I took the boys out trick or treating.  It was ADORABLE.  We walked down into the village, and went door to door.  It was dark out, and Drew was thrilled that we were out walking "in the night".  He kept saying, "mommy, this is SO FUN!"  Of course, this statement was always followed by, "but mommy, uncle Jamie and I are making the rules, you follow us".  Hunter had a great time too.  He followed Drew around and would not let go of the bucket that he was carrying around getting candy.  It was so cute, and so impressive that he could carry it.  It got pretty heavy!

Drew sees the cake and says, "mommy, I'm not eating that, it has spiders in it...that's disgusting".

Our camera is broken.  I'm so annoyed.  All I have left is the camera on my phone, and while it's not the worst, as you can see by the photos on this blog, it's not the best either.  Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera!