The Holidays are Over

Yesterday we got right back into real life. I set my alarm for 6:30 and pressed snooze for 45 minutes. When I finally made it out of bed I realized I was the first one up - What? At the very end of holidays the kids decide to SLEEP IN! What about last week, or the week before. What about New Years Day when they were up at 6AM.

One good thing - I got to have my wake up coffee in peace and quiet before I roused them to get ready for school.

Ah school. I love school. I love driving the kiddos there and dropping them off and skedaddling away for a whole 2.5 hours of freedom. But I have to say that I also love picking them up and hearing about their day, making them a snack and then listening to the shenanigans as they burn off some energy. Right now I'm listening to said shenanigans in fact - from the quietness of my study - with the door tightly closed ;)


Anyway. We had some great holidays. Sam had the whole week off between Christmas and New Years and we did pretty much nothing but relax and eat. We completed a whole puzzle over the break (Zach loved it even though it said ages 12 to adult and Ana dejectedly declared that she was "so terrible at puzzles" as she fiddled with a piece or two, tried them twice and promptly gave up), we had lots of yummy food and read books, watched tv (the dog whisperer is Ana's new favourite show and what do you know - on boxing day (or one of those days) it was on for about 6 hours straight! And of course played the Wii which was the main present of the year. It's a load of fun but after Christmas Day was over Zach had to take a whole three days off to rest his very sore arm muscles from the boxing matches. Both the kids were groaning in pain after hours of boxing fun.

Here are a few pics (in no particular order) from Christmas. And it seems that Sam must have been taking all the pictures since there are none of him.

There was some great excitement when Ana opened up Geronimo and especially the brand new Thea Stilton books!

The top one is the kids bright and early on Christmas morning waiting to open their stockings.
Next is opening presents by the light of our fire (or rather the fire channel complete with the sound of crackling logs)
Me and Ana on Christmas Eve after church in front of our puzzle and Ana and Zach before we started to eat all the great food.

Happy New Year!

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...