I'm still alive...

....I know you've been wondering, it's been so long since I've last posted!

Here are some photos from the past week and a bit.

Drew is working on pull-ups at gymnastics.  It's very cute.

Drew has gotten into computer games at home now.  The Playmobil website has some good ones.  

I was at work and James asked the boys to clean up.  They piled everything into the corner and called it a day.  I wonder where they get that from???  

James bought the boys shovels, so they spent some time decorating them while I was at work....it was really fun apparently!

We went to the Christmas open house at Springridge.  Santa was there, but Drew did not want to go see him.  He was acting up the day before, so I think he was worried Santa would get him in trouble for it...lol

I left Hunter at home with James to nap so Drew and I headed to  Nana's to cut some branches for our urns.

We visited some old friends, Tom and Sarah.  Hadn't seen them in a while, was SO great to catch up.  The boys had fun with their dog.

I had promised Drew that we would decorate the gingerbread house between the trip to Nana's and the trip to Tom and Sarah's.  There wasn't time, so we ended up decorating it at 8am the next morning.

James had a meeting at the cottage, so the kids and I  tagged along.  The water had been turned off so I was a bit nervous there would be a bathroom emergency.  As you can see from one of the photos above, it was solved by a tree.  lol

Hunter can do "skin the cat" on his own now!   (and I learned a gymnastics term!)

We finished this session of gymnastics, start our next one next Tuesday.

Drew's report card.  Math is great, reading/writing need some major work.

This cupcake was to make us feel better over losing our phone.  It worked...sort of.

Drew and I spent some time writing a book.  He found photos on the internet to print off and glue into his book.  The book is about a dinosaur named "Police Car".

The hydro line to our barn blew down.  Right on top of our van.
My dad was there when it happened.  Thank god, otherwise I would have freaked out.

My mom, some friends and I went on the Christmas house tour.  This year we did the Friday night, limo driven option.  It was fantastic.  So much fun!  The last house we went to had an indoor pool.  It was a horse farm.  Crazy huge house.  Amazing how some people live!

Our craft room has exploded.

I bought the boys hockey sticks.  They LOVED them.

The boys, my mom and I went to the Santa Claus parade.  It was cold, wet and fabulous.  The boys had a fun time.

Hunter is in the background covering his face.

There's Santa!

Somewhere amongst these crazy few days, I dropped my phone in the toilet.  I was hopeful it would be saved, as I had heard many a story of friend's phones being saved by rice.  I think the combination of water and bleach toilet bowl cleaner is what did my phone in.  There was no saving it and I have been without a phone for a few days now.  My withdrawal symptoms have kind of gone away and now I am just sad (ok, not really, but it's amazing how much I relied on that thing!).  It's our internet provider at home.  We tether them to our computer.  Without a phone, I didn't have internet at home when James was at work.  The main reason why I haven't posted in a while.

James is off for the next few days though, so we'll probably try and find me one during the next little while.

That's it, that's all.

Until next time...

The things kids say....

I can not get this memory out of my head and it makes me laugh every time I think of it, so I'm going to type it out here, so that when I'm old and grey I can look back and remember....

****if swear words offend you, please do not read this post****

Picture this....

A little over 5 years ago (before the kids, obviously), I was working at Maple Avenue Childcare.  On this particular day, I was covering drop-off in one of the rooms.  This meant that children of all ages would be dropped off in this room and then when it was "program time" or the time when their actual teacher was scheduled to start, they would go off to their classrooms.

In the room with me that day were many children, but one boy in particular always got my attention.  He was cute, funny and always said the most ridiculous things for a 3 year old (he was, in fact, 3).  He had just mastered the "potty", so was wearing underpants and had just been dropped off, so I wasn't too concerned about getting him to go at that particular moment.

We were in mid-conversation (he had the biggest fascination with cars, he could tell you the make/model of any car that drove by - that's probably what we were talking about).  Anyways, all of a sudden, his eyes got big and he says, "Oh crap, I shit my fucking pants".

And he did, he did shit his fucking pants.

Now, normally, I don't find it cute or endearing when children swear.  I usually (and secretly) shake my finger at their parents for using inappropriate language in front of their children.  But this kid?  This was above and beyond swearing.  He had used several different swears correctly in a very complex sentence....and not just out of the blue.  This kid used the words to correctly describe his action.

In order to sternly tell him that those were not words we use in the classroom, I had to first turn around and stop laughing.....and crying...because I was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down my cheeks.    It was priceless.

And that kid?  That kid will be ruling the world one day.

Weekend wrap-up

Our weekend was pretty uneventful.  

Saturday, Drew had a play-date at his friend Mathew's house.  He went for the afternoon.  H and I dropped him off there and then met Nana at Timmy's.  H was PISSED when we got to Timmy's.  He wanted to stay with Drew and Mathew so badly.  Timbits were no consolation.  Taking him for a quick visit at Nana's made him feel a bit better.

James spread manure all day and then went to play basketball in the evening.  We did not see him on saturday.

H and I picked Drew up after H's nap and then the 3 of us came home and just hung out.  I was planning on taking them out for dinner, but we didn't make it out....it just seemed like so much work to get them ready to go.

The big event of the night was their truck races.  James had started this a week or so ago, and so I had to continue on with it.  They race around the house pushing their trucks and I time them to see if they can keep getting faster times.  It's pure genius.  Tires them right out.

SOOO excited to start their races.

In this photo, Drew is showing off a pair of candy vampire teeth that he got Trick or Treating.  

On Sunday, the boys had swimming.  Actually, just Drew had swimming.  Hunter has had this nasty cough that just won't go away so we opted to keep him out of the water on this day.

After swimming, James headed to work and the usual post-swim routine of Timmy's with Nana and Papa was followed.  Today, after Timmy's,  Nana and Papa were heading to my Aunt Fran and Uncle Henk's farm.  Their barn had just burned down yesterday, so they wanted to head over there to give them some moral support.  What an awful thing to happen.  They are both fine and Henk's son, who was in the barn when it started is fine, but they lost more than 20 calves and some cats/kittens.  So sad.  Apparently Henk's son got all of the calves safely out of the barn a few times, but they just kept running back in......sigh.  It really, really sucks when shitty things happen to really good people.

After parting ways with Nana and Papa and sending our love to Aunt Fran and Henk, we headed over to Mathew's house to pick him up for an afternoon of fun at our house.

The boys played for a while at our place and then I took them to McDonald's for lunch.  I wasn't going to be able to do the whole nap routine with Hunter given that I was also looking after Mathew today (and god knows what 2 five year old boys can come up with do if left to their own devices), so I was banking on the fact that he would fall asleep in the van on the way home from lunch.

It worked.  Hunter napped while Drew and Mathew played a bit more.  We were outside for quite some time when Mathew asked if we could go inside and watch a movie.  I think he was tired.

I found a transformers cartoon on TV (apparently Treehouse is boring, according to our little friend....he has an older brother, so I'm guessing it's not "cool" to watch Treehouse......I really hope this doesn't rub off on Drew, I'm not ready to part ways with Treehouse yet!).  I also popped them some popcorn and was able to have a few minutes of quiet while they watched the show.

I dropped Mathew off at around 4:30 and then we headed to Nana and Papa's to have dinner with them.  The original plan was for us to head out on the Gator to collect some tree branches to decorate our planters/urns with for x-mas but Hunter would have nothing to do with that.  He just wanted to head inside (I really don't think he's feeling well!).  So, that's what we did.  Drew was exhausted from his busy day, so we just hung out and watched a couple of the Christmas "Thomas" DVDs.  

I guess I take the first sentence of this post back.  Our weekend was pretty busy, now that I think about it!

Happy Monday.

A blur

I'm pretty sure that I've had "A blur" as a blog title before, but I can't help using it...it sums everything up so nicely!

Wednesday - Friday of this week were just that, a big, crazy blur.  I can't comment too much on what my children were up to, as I was working all 3 days and missed most of their fun.

Drew was at school on Wednesday and James' parents came wednesday morning to watch H.  James was heading up to the Glen to help with the cattle.  It's that time of year again and the calves needed to be sent to the auction to be sold.
All went smoothly for them, except for the part where my dad was knocked over by one of the bulls.  I didn't see it, but James thought for sure they were heading to the hospital when it happened.  Dad was behind the bull in the shoot and somehow it got turned around and started running at him.  Dad got out of there as fast as he could, and did manage to escape but as the bull was turning the corner, his ass caught my dad and sent him flying into the fence.  He hurt his neck and back, but nothing was broken (and of course, my stubborn father wouldn't get out of the shoot afterwards, had to finish tagging the rest of the calves).  He (and the rest of us, for that matter) were very lucky.  It could have been a lot worse.

Anyways, once the trucker showed up (Mr Brander, who has been trucking for us for a lot of years) we all headed out to Swiss Chalet for dinner.  It was my brother's last night in town and we wanted to have a nice meal together as a family.

And that's about all I have to say about Wednesday to Friday.  We took the boys to Chuck E Cheese on Friday night (man, was that a mistake, there were about 5 birthday parties going on and a bazillion children there....I usually have a high tolerance for places like that, but I wanted out of there right away that night!).

Some pics from the week....

The Toys R Us catalogue came in the mail....the boys had fun circling their "wishes for Christmas".

Drew teaching H how to play Candyland.

Happy Halloween 2011

It didn't feel that busy yesterday, but as I look over the pictures I'm now realizing why Drew fell asleep on the way home from the Glen last night!

It started early yesterday morning with Drew realizing it was Halloween and practically galloping out to the bus.  Once again, good luck Ms Fisher!  lol

Hunter, James and I hung out at home with H doing some sticker crafts....I took this picture because he was so focused for so long, it was adorable!

James' parents came over to watch H so that I could head over to Pineview to help the kindies put their costumes on for the annual costume parade.  It was ADORABLE.

Drew's cute little class, with Ms Fisher in the background.

Lining up to start the parade.

In the gym, during the assembly.

 Once Drew came home from school, we headed up to the Glen to have dinner and go trick or treating.

Hunter found some flowers to pick for me.

Uncle Jamie and Hunterbug.

Enjoying some of his loot and not wanting his photo taken.

No pants on and candy in his hand - Hunter was loving this moment!

Papa loves halloween treats!

I was a little disappointed with Drew's behaviour last night.  Jamie had come home this week so that he could go out trick or treating with the boys.  He came out last year and we all had a great time (don't get me wrong, we still had a great time this year) but Drew would not have anything to do with Jamie this year.  I think Jamie's feelings were hurt a little, and I was sad for Drew.  I know that once Jamie leaves on Thursday, Drew will be wishing he paid more attention to his uncle.  I've been trying to tell him that, but he doesn't seem to understand.  Sigh.

On the bright side, there was a house in the Glen that was giving out Bailey's (for the adults) and full-size chocolate bars!

Happy Halloween!

Happy birthday Jamie!

Sunday morning's usual swimming lessons ritual was followed by the usual Timmy's routine and then had Drew, H and I driving home.  H fell asleep in the car, so after I transferred him to his crib, Drew and I played outside.

I heard some mewing coming from the shop area, so we went out and investigated.

We were thrilled to find one of Tabber's kittens.  It's black, super cute and super friendly!

Once H woke up from his nap, we piled in the van and headed to the Glen.  Aunt Fran and Henk were coming over to enjoy a Turkey lunch to celebrate both Thanksgiving and Jamie's birthday.

The day was great fun.  The weather was perfect, so we spent some time outdoors and we even carved a pumpkin with Nana and Aunt Fran.

The boys helping Uncle Jamie blow out the candles on his ice cream cake.

These straws made creepy sounds whenever they were used.

Was really wishing James could have been there, but otherwise a great day!