oops.

I seem to have neglected my blog! We have been so terribly busy here for the last few months. It seems like things are just starting to wind down, only to wind back up next week! I am going back to work starting Monday! I am so blessed to have such a flexible job with such accomadating bosses. I will be working M-F 5:30-8:30 AM!!!! It seems bad, but I am so happy. I don't work any weekends or evenings so there will be lots of family time AND my kids will only be awake for 1 hour while I"m at work. Dave is rearranging his schedule so that he can work 9-5, so he will be in charge of getting the kids up and dressed and fed for school. That will be an adjustment for everybody!

I have been doing a fitness bootcamp for the last month and it has been amazing! Hard.. YES! but such a great workout. Its at 5:30 in the morning and the last day is this Friday. I've already signed up for the next one (but in the evening.) I've also been running twice a week and doing a fitness class on Saturday morning. I've never been in such great shape (or so hungry!)

Daves new book is coming out in two weeks and we are all so excited. He has been working (or talking) about this one for the last 3 years so its been a long time coming! Its a graphic novel about Helen Betty Osbourne and they are planning on using it in some school curriculums. I hope this leads to big things for him :)

Emily LOVES kindergarten. And she hates that she doesn't get to stay all day like some of her classmates. She has learned so much already, she almost knows how to read and loves doing MATH PROBLEMS! That makes me so happy because I love math :) She also started fiddle lessons (she has been asking to take them since she was 3!)

Cole is in nursery school two mornings a week with some of his cousins and he is enjoying it as well. He gets mad when Emily has school and he doesn't. He has also learned how to swim almost an entire width of the pool! He has also learned how to be sneaky when he is misbehaving! I have to laugh about it but not until he is out of the room. HA!

And finally my precious Anna! She is such an amazing little baby. So happy and pesonable. She now walks around the furniture and crawls around but has little to no interest in walking. Fine by me! I know after Cole (he walked at 8 months) that its okay for them to wait awhile. She also knows the signs for food, nurse and all done. She is so proud when she uses them too but thinks that she should get what she wants IMMEDIATELY after doing the sign. She has quite the scream!

So thats it around here. We go from one thing to the next to the next to the next all day every day. Its tiring but so worth it. It'll be interesting to see what happens next week when we all have to get used to our new routines. I'm most worried about Anna and how she will react to not being able to nurse until 9, but she is 11 months and should be able to stand it :) We will continue with the go-go-go until after Christmas when we have rented a cabin at High Lake in Falcon Ridge for a few days. No tv, no internet, no phones! I can't wait!!

ack.

A couple of days ago I packed up the kids and headed to MEC in seach of a good backpack for Emily. I looked around before finding the perfect little black packpack. Of course, I knew then we would have to add a little flower patch or something girly for the little diva. Anyway, thats not even the point of this entry. The point is that even though I was there for only that reason, and even though I knew it was coming.. it just hit me tonight...

MY BABY IS GOING TO BE IN KINDERGARTEN.

Every morning a school bus is going to pick her up and I just have to let her go. Can't she just stay a baby forever? AND I'm going to have to do this at least 2 more times?!?! I'm not so good at cutting the cord apparently. (Just as a side, I did cut Anna's umbilical cord, it was so cool.)

We did decide that half days was all that she would go, so I keep reminding myself that we will have every afternoon together, but things are going to be so different. Cole will be devastated, as will Anna. We haven't been apart much in the last 5 years, so it may be ME that has the worst time adjusting.

Seriously where has the time gone?

okay okay

I want to post at least one picture from the road trip :) This is us at the top of what Dana called "an easy hike." It was not easy for us with all the kids, lol.

Yes, I know, very disjointed.

I really would like to post all about our trip, but we packed so much in that it would take forever to get it all out. If we are facebook friends you can check out the pictures there.

It was great, it was busy, and it was tiring. Anna was so good in the van, it was unbelievable.

Since then, Emily has stuck a bead in her ear and we can't get it out. Her pediatrician can't get it out, and neither can the ent. So she is being put under at the end of July to get it out :(

Nursery school is also out for the summer and all other activities are over. Its kind of weird for us to have nowhere we need to be. Next up is Folk Fest, I can hardly wait.

Anna is now 6 months and has had a taste of food. She tried avacado a couple times and absolutely loved it. She grabbed the spoon and shoved it in her mouth even!

Cole is so excited to start nusery school in the fall, its almost all he talks about. That at dinosaus and pirates! He has grown up so much in the last couple of months and become such a good helper. He loves helping cook supper and weeding the garden!

Emily is almost as excited as Cole, but for the school bus! She will be on it for an hour though, which was a big factor in deciding to only send her to half day kindergarten. I'll be making the trek to pick her up every day at lunch.

We have been going for hour+ long walks every day. I put Anna and Cole in the double jogger and Emily rides her bike. Its hard to keep up to her! You'd think she would be tired but we usually only stop to take Cole to the park :) I can't wait for next summer when Anna will be old enough for the bike trailer, I miss being able to bike wherever we go. That or rollerblading.

I think thats all that is new.

eep!

Just two weeks until we leave on our road trip! I'm excited but oh so nervous about it. Anna is pretty much the most contented baby ever, but still, she is just 4 1/2 months old.

We have been having a lot of bbq's lately. Its pretty funny for me to be cooking meat. I really don't know what to do with it, or how to buy it. I have made a lot of hurried phone calls to Leora to ask what the heck I should be doing! I think though that after tonight (its my Mom's birthday) people will just have to deal with the vegetarian meals. Organic meat is much too expensive.

I really should be preparing for that but I'm too good of a procrastinator.

Randomness for the week.

Emily's birthday party is coming up this weekend. We are all pretty excited! Every year I try and do something a little different, I make everything from scratch, I try to give "earth friendly" goodie bags, I think I really go all out. This year is different. I am pretty much letting it all go. LOL! She is having her party at The Park Theatre and they are watching Toy Story 2. Oh, and they are eating pizza (veg and cheese), popcorn, and getting loot bags full of candy. I swear, I don't know what's happened to me. Thankfully they have agreed to let us use their reusable plates and utensils (they don't normally do that for kids) and we ordered a fruit and veggie tray, oh and they also have juice boxes. I am also paying someone to make the cake. Its going to be a themed one and I really couldn't have done that on my own.

Anna had her 4 month appointment on Monday. She weighs almost 16 pounds. It should be noted that at this point in Cole's life he weighed 20 pounds! Its amazing the difference between each child. I love our pediatrician. He has no interest in the early introduction of solids that so many of my friends seem to get with their pediatrician. He is also full of such great breastfeeding support. AND he is a vegetarian so he is more than supportive of our decision to raise our children that way.

Tuesday is always such a busy day. Emily has nursery school in the morning, and then we rush off to a mom's group that I have been attending since Cole was born. Its so funny that the group has so many returning moms. I guess we all have babies every 2 years?

The rest of the week is pretty busy as well. Tomorrow Emily has nursery again, and Amy is coming over in the afternoon. I haven't seen her since before Anna was born because she has been in Ottawa at school. Friday, I am babysitting in the morning while my sister-in-law goes to a dr's appointment and we are supposed to see Margarida sometime too. Friday night is always movie and pizza night here, and then Saturday is the party! Sunday we have church, and we try to swim afterwards and then Emily has kindermusik at 2:45. Sunday evening we have friends coming over for a bbq.

Sometime in there I have to start planning Andrea's baby shower, find a chair to go with the desk I got Emily for her birthday, grocery shop for the bbq and finally file our taxes. We owe pretty big this year too, boo :(

Teeth at 3 months?

Anna has a tooth! She's actually a little older than Cole was when he got his first tooth, but she seems so much smaller. That might have to do with the fact that at this age he outweighed her by almost 5 pounds, but still. Something about knowing that this may be our last baby is making me really treasure her baby-ness.

We had a crazy spring break. Play date after play date after play date. We were all exhausted when the week finally ended. Well, actually, Dave and I have been catching up on season 3 of Lost every night, that might be why I'm exhausted ;) We watched 4 episodes last night!

Cole and Emily are being a little too quiet for my liking. I better go check on how big of a mess they are making!

copied from: http://www.magicalchildhood.com/articles/4yo.htm

So here, I offer my list of what a 4 year old should know.

1. She should know that she is loved wholly and unconditionally, all of the time.

2. He should know that he is safe and he should know how to keep himself safe in public, with others, and in varied situations. He should know that he can trust his instincts about people and that he never has to do something that doesn't feel right, no matter who is asking. He should know his personal rights and that his family will back them up.

3. She should know how to laugh, act silly, be goofy and use her imagination. She should know that it is always okay to paint the sky orange and give cats 6 legs.

4. He should know his own interests and be encouraged to follow them. If he could care less about learning his numbers, his parents should realize he'll learn them accidentally soon enough and let him immerse himself instead in rocket ships, drawing, dinosaurs or playing in the mud.

5. She should know that the world is magical and that so is she. She should know that she's wonderful, brilliant, creative, compassionate and marvelous. She should know that it's just as worthy to spend the day outside making daisy chains, mud pies and fairy houses as it is to practice phonics. Scratch that-- way more worthy.

But more important, here's what parents need to know.

1. That every child learns to walk, talk, read and do algebra at his own pace and that it will have no bearing on how well he walks, talks, reads or does algebra.

2. That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is
reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books.

3. That being the smartest or most accomplished kid in class has never had any bearing on being the happiest. We are so caught up in trying to give our children "advantages" that we're giving them lives as multi-tasked and stressful as ours. One of the biggest advantages we can give our children is a simple, carefree childhood.

4. That our children deserve to be surrounded by books, nature, art supplies and the freedom to explore them. Most of us could get rid of 90% of our children's toys and they wouldn't be missed, but some things are important-- building toys like legos and blocks, creative toys like all types of art materials (good stuff), musical instruments (real ones and multicultural ones), dress up clothes and books, books, books. (Incidentally, much of this can be picked up quite cheaply at thrift shops.) They need to have the freedom to explore with these things too-- to play with scoops of dried beans in the high chair (supervised, of course), to knead bread and make messes, to use paint and play dough and glitter at the kitchen table while we make supper even though it gets everywhere, to have a spot in the yard where it's absolutely fine to dig up all the grass and make a mud pit.

5. That our children need more of us. We have become so good at saying that we need to take
care of ourselves that some of us have used it as an excuse to have the rest of the world take care of our kids. Yes, we all need undisturbed baths, time with friends, sanity breaks and an occasional life outside of parenthood. But we live in a time when parenting magazines recommend trying to commit to 10 minutes a day with each child and scheduling one Saturday a month as family day. That's not okay! Our children don't need Nintendos, computers, after school activities, ballet lessons, play groups and soccer practice nearly as much as they need US.

They need fathers who sit and listen to their days, mothers who join in and make crafts with them, parents who take the time to read them stories and act like idiots with them. They need us to take walks with them and not mind the .1 MPH pace of a toddler on a spring night. They deserve to help us make supper even though it takes twice as long and makes it twice as much work. They deserve to know that they're a priority for us and that we truly love to be with them.

life.

So now that I've had this blog for almost a year, I figured I would actually try and use it. Let's see, where to start...

Cole is now 2.5 and one very big handful. He has become very bored lately and it is starting to show in his behaviour. I'm kind of stuck with things to do for him because of his age. I'm trying out different playdates and hoping that will work. Otherwise he is too young for nusery school and for any away-from-mom activities which I think is really what he needs. He is too smart for his own good! I registered him for 2 mornings a week nursery school in September but I guess we'll all just have to live with it until then!





Emily is going to be 5 in a month! A MONTH! I really don't know where that time has gone. She is trying desperately to learn to read and is obsessed with letters and numbers. Its amazing what they learn even when you aren't trying to teach them. She is registered in kindergarten at WMES for September. I cannot believe that she is going there, I'd like to tell 18 year old me what was coming, but she'd never believe it.




Oh and Anna... 3 months already. I think I am really treasuring her baby time more than I did with the others. There is a real possibility that this is our last child (please no, but I still have to work on Dave!) and I don't want to blink and realize its over already. She is smiling and laughing and talk-coo'ing like crazy. Its so sweet! She is also the most relaxed baby I have ever seen. Which is so nice when I think about how the other two were at this age.




That's my life right now, and I love it. We are just in planning stages of our summer and its going to be wonderful. So far we have a road trip to Banff (yes we are crazy!), camping at Folk Fest, a camping trip with the in-laws, and our week at Clear Lake of course. Days at the beach are just a given :)