A Very Merry Christmas Concert

The kids annual Christmas Concert was on Wednesday. The kids had a fun but busy day with two performances; one in the afternoon and then again in the evening. I was amazed at the amount of words they memorized for their song. It was very well done. The video's are from our little camera so they're a bit shaky but hopefully you can still see how totally cute they both are.

Here is Zac the gingerbread man. He did a great job and sang more than I've ever seen him sing before.




Ana - the little snow ball. Her part was a poem that was pretty funny. I love how she smirks before the funny line - listen closely!



School is out and I'm looking forward to not driving back and forth three times a day, sleeping in some mornings - even if it is only until 8, and relaxing with the kids. We're going to have a quiet Christmas but I'm anticipating peace filled days with time to reflect and remember Jesus who Jesus is and why he came.

More Christmas pictures to come...

Halloween

Both the kids wanted scary pumpkins but I think they look a bit too happy to be scary! The kids refused to even put there hands inside and pull out the guts - Ana even started crying when she touched it the wet seedy goo - sheesh. So it was pumpkins by mom and dad this year.









Here they are with the masterpieces they had no hand in (except for picking the pumpkins)














We had a black cat and Spiderman. Ana had a cute black tail that I made out of a feather boa. She's the cutest black cat I've ever seen.

Zac's muscles were built into the suit - he thought that was cool. I found it at Value Village for only $10 (that's why the mask is a bit scary looking)










And of course - candy time. We had some friends who came over for pizza and then the kids went out together for Candy. When they came back they chowed on candy as much and as fast as they could in a half hour time span.

They're still eating candy but at least the demand has tapered off a bit this week and it's almost gone - hooray!

Halloween's my least favourite holiday so I'm glad its over for another year. The kids did not understand when I told them that and Zachary could not imagine why I hadn't bought any outside scary decorations like our neighbour - he informed me they weren't very expensive at all.

skating day

Last week the kids went skating with school. I was there for an hour or so and got to skate with both Zac and Ana. Only I didn't have a camera so one of my friends kindly took some pictures of Zac skating.

He did really well but wouldn't let go of the support thinger and also wouldn't let me help him which is so typical. He also thought he was AMAZING and so very fast.





Ana's home sick today. Not very sick but everyone needs a 'free' day once in a while. I'm hoping she'll be so bored she'll be begging to go back to school tomorrow!

I've been struggling with fear this week - mainly fear of H1N1. I don't know why since I'm usually not overly concerned about stuff that I can't do anything about. I think I'm mostly scared that I'll get sick when I'm supposed to be in Ontario at the end of the month and I'll have to cancel my trip. There's no way I could go stay with my parents sick right now - it would be too risky for my Dad. But Jesus knows whats up and I have to trust that.

Speaking of my trip to Ontario. I'm super excited and counting down the days. It's not very often that I get to go somewhere by myself and I'm even looking forward to traveling alone without having to keep anyone occupied except myself. It'll be great to see mom and dad and of course little baby Eli - my newest nephew and first one on my side of the family. So very fun.

Unfortunately for Sam it's a crazy week for the kids schedules at school with two early dismissal days and a Pro D day! Ha! I feel totally confident that he can handle it. It makes the trip even sweeter knowing that there's lots going on that I get a break from.

See you soon Ontario Family.

Yummy

Lately on my sister's blog she's had lots of photos of food. Her, mom and Rochelle have been getting together to make jam, lasagna, shepherd's pie among other things. It's made me very lonely for family and I would have loved to spend a Saturday with all of them, cooking.

But since that's not really possible I decided to take the leap on my own. I spent a Saturday afternoon making perogies or verenica (which I have no idea how to spell). It was a very peaceful time for me actually. I thought a lot about my grandma who passed away last year. She always made the best perogies and the best pie. I thought if mine could be half as good as hers I'd be laughing.

So I called my mom and got the recipee and got to work. Rolling, filling, cutting, boiling and the best part of all - frying (in A Lot of butter)

I also made a berry pie that was really runny but so very good!

Sam said they reminded him of the first time we were at my grandparents house for dinner. She served perogies and farmer sausage and mine looked just like hers! They were very good and so far our arteries seem to be doing just fine!

PS: I had so many issues with getting the pictures to do what I wanted. Any tips from anyone? That's probably the main reason I don't blog more often!

Aren't they Cute?

So...I didn't manage to take pictures on the first day of school - I know - (honestly I didn't really even think about it until we got to school on the first day and all the moms had cameras).

But here's Zachary sometime during his first full week of school. He loves school so much, which I love. It has been such an easy transition for him which I thank God for daily.

The other day the kids decided to try their hand at taking photos of each other (and themselves).

Here's Ana looking goofy - taken by Zach.

The photo session happened to be during our daily "wart treatment" segment. Which has been going on for 3 weeks now with very slow success. First we soak Zach's foot and then apply the acid stuff. Zach used to think it was all great fun but we're getting down to the bottom now and its starting to hurt more which causes copious amounts of grief.

We're well into the routine of fall and I'm loving it. Ana is taking piano lessons, which was nerve wracking at first but is turning out to be totally her thing. I'm so glad she loves it.

She's also started girl's club this year at church which is fun. Its crazy how fast these kids grow up. I love watching the intense change between preschool age and kindergarten. Sometimes I look at Zach and wonder who this kid really is!

Missing Teeth and Back to School

So Zac lost his first tooth while we were out for dinner and the kids were with a sitter. He just had to call us to tell us. It came out while he was eating pizza! The second one came out about a week later. He was so proud - even the blood wasn't a big deal (and for Zac it usually is).

The two pics are of his first tooth loss, now you can just picture a bigger gap!







In other news, last week was the first week of school. I don't have pictures because I'm a lame parent who forgot her camera all week! But maybe I'll try to remember tomorrow and make it seem like they were pictures of the first day!

Ana's in grade 2 now and loves it. She's trying to be all cool and pretend she doesn't but sometimes she forgets and cheers when I tell her its time to go. She's also started piano lessons this year and absolutely thinks its the best thing ever. She practices every day (lets hope this lasts longer than a week!) and loves to show us what she is learning. I'm really glad we decided to do this despite her many objections. She also starts girls club at church this week which is also very exciting. I'm praying she meets some great friends at girls club quickly. Friends are so important.

Zac had a very long week of kindergarten integration. I'm not sure exactly why it takes so long to start full classes but it does. Tomorrow he gets to go for the whole thing - all three hours which includes lining up with all the other kids outside. Very exciting. He's doing so great. He loves going to school and hasn't cried once even though he thought he might because he did last year on his first day of preschool.

I'm enjoying fall, although I've loved the hot hot weather we've had the past few weeks. It feels like summer is having a hard time letting go. It's nice to still have flowers and stuff outside into September. But I'm sure when the cooler weather starts I'll love that too.

More as stuff comes up...

Hot

It is soooo HOT here. 36 degrees out 31 inside. Our humidex is 43 and man it reminds me of Ontario but everyone in Ontario has central air - Now I get why.

I've got the fans on full blast plus the bathroom fan on and the overhead stove fan (bc hydro suggests keeping these on to pull the hot air up and out of the house) but we're still cooking. The kids were groaning when I came downstairs to sit with them while they watched tv - but it's the coolest room in the house.

I really shouldn't complain - and mostly I'm not - we have rain for 10 months of the year so two months of intense heat is a nice break from that.

I've also discovered that I love going to the beach these days (well not today - much too hot). I've found a fun beach about 30 minutes from here called Hayward Lake. It has great sand and clean water and is nice and cool - very refreshing on these crazy hot days. I've been twice already in the past two weeks and will definitely go again. Sorry, but I don't have any pics of our lake outings. Each time I forgot the camera!

Sam is heading out of town next week for a few days of Action debrief in Fresno and then my parents come (yea - I'm so excited mom and dad). I'm sure we'll do lots of fun stuff. They haven't been here in the summer since before Ana was born.

Just a little update from our summer since Manitoba. I'll post some lake pics if I remember to bring my camera next time.

And we're back...

After a ten month hiatus. I didn't mean to not blog for a full ten months but time sure can slip away from you. I won't try to catch you up on everything that's happened in the past months but I can say that Ana's now finished grade 1 and Zac is gearing up for Kindergarten. Those seem to be the two biggest highlights of the past year.

We've just returned from a wonderful holiday to Manitoba - the second official Cousins camp at the farm.

It was so good to be at gramma and grampa Dick's farm along with Nathan and Lisa from Ontario and their three kids: Kezia, Simon, and Jersey and of course the locals, Thom, Tara, Seth and Malachi and Mary & Jeremy.

The kids had a blast together - crafting, slip n' sliding, quading in the mud, reading stories and generally getting into whatever sort of crazy business they could. The adults managed some relaxing time - I even read two books although I'm pretty sure Nath beat me by two.

Here's just a few photos of our time away.

Sam enjoying the mud.

Ana and Kez with Uncle Nathan just before they got stuck in a big mud pit.

Not your usual slip n' slide!

And all the cousins

We're back home now for the rest of the summer. I'm looking forward to my mom and dad coming out for a week in August and also to spending some relaxing days in the sun. Even though it was raining when we left and raining when we returned I've been assured that there were some bouts of sun during the weeks we were gone. Hopefully we'll get lots more.

And hopefully this isn't my last post for the year!