weekend getaway

It's the middle of January, it's cold outside and we had a plan-free weekend.  Combine that with finding a good deal on a hotel and you get an impromptu family weekend getaway to Niagara Falls.  We packed our bathing suits and headed to the Americana with their indoor waterpark.  The waterpark is much smaller than the one in Great Wolf Lodge (that's okay because the price of the room was much smaller too!).  The girls loved pulling out their flip flops to wear in January.

It's amazing how something that is SO much fun for kids (waterslides! wave pool!) is torture for moms (standing for hours in public wearing only a bathing suit).  The kids sure did have fun.  And I'll admit I liked the waterslides too.

On Saturday night we ventured out for a quick dinner and drive along the falls.  It's nice to see them lit up at night plus the lights festival is still on with all the fun light displays.






Sunday after more waterpark fun we headed out to see the falls in daylight.  It's quite chilly but very pretty to see everything covered in ice from the mist of the falls.  The kids liked finding chunks of ice to throw into the water.

Jeff had a quiet drive home with the 4 of us all sleeping.  I think that means it was a successful family getaway!

Leah club

It's an exclusive club, membership requires the okay from the highest authority in our house (aka Leah).  This morning Leah announced I was in because we ate rice krispies together for breakfast and because I like Disney.  The deal was sealed when I received my official Minnie Mouse sticker which has a place of honour on my ipad case.  Yes, this is what passes for excitement when you are a stay at home Mom!

PA day

The kids had a PA day and we ended up having a nice, quiet day at home.  Kyle woke up with a fever and spent most of the day on the couch sleeping and reading with a few breaks to work on some homework when the tylenol had kicked in (he was trying to earn back his ipod touch).

The girls had a really nice sister day with no fighting, Jillian was very patient with her little sister and Leah loved being able to play with Jillian all day long.  They started out the day getting dressed by themselves, they made snow angels and played in the snow, had hot chocolate, did activity books and crafts and coloured on the windows...overall a pretty nice PA day.

The girls decorated both the front and back windows

school mornings

I am not a morning person.  And yet school starts in the morning.  Which means making sure kids are up (sometimes a feat with Jillian), dressed (often an argument with Leah) and fed.  Lunches and snacks need to be packed.  Backpacks need to be checked.  Weather appropriate clothing needs to be located and ready to go.  Thankfully Kyle and Jillian are old enough now I don't need to physically walk them to the bus stop...I simply shove them out the front door with an "I love you, have a great day!" and watch them walk to the bus stop from the window.  Some mornings it all goes smoothly.  Other mornings, not so much (there may be some yelling involved at times).

Two (sometimes three) mornings a week I need to take Leah to school once Kyle & Jillian are on the bus.  Which means leaving the house.  Which means getting out of my comfy pjs.  Kind of.  Here's my conversation with Leah from the other morning as we got into the van to take her to school...

Leah: Mommy, are you taking me to school in your pajamas?

Me: what?  no.  no no no...I put jeans on

Leah: but your top is still pajamas?

Me: well, Mommy doesn't actually have pj tops, I wear regular tshirts to bed

Leah: are you still wearing the one you slept in last night?

Me: um, yes

Leah: so you're driving me to school in your pajamas

You gotta love the straightforward way a 4 year old sees the world.

By the way, on the mornings Leah does not have school this is what I see.  My little sweetie pie, still in her own pjs, coming downstairs with half of her bed to make herself cozy on the couch.  A little chip off the old block.

reading

All three kids have inherited my love of reading which makes me very happy.  Kyle is quite the bookworm, always has been one.  Jillian took a bit longer to get into reading but the last few years I've found she has really gotten into some particular series (Goddess Girls, Rainbow Magic) and now enjoys sitting down to read.  Leah loves to have us read books to her, and lately is really interested in sounding out the words herself.  Even though Leah is my third, and I've been through this stage twice already, I'm still finding it exciting to see and hear Leah as she reads new words each day.  That step of grasping the concept of words from letters really is amazing to watch.

Here's some of what the kiddos and I are reading these days...

Leah bought this book for herself with Christmas money on our last trip to the Disney store.  We read it over and over and she can't wait to see the movie and tv show.  We don't get the Disney channel so we'll wait for the dvd to come out in March.  Leah is still in the stage of wanting to read books over and over to memorize the storyline.  We also have a selection of Cat in the Hat books that Leah loves to read together. 




Jillian does a lot of reading by herself in both english and french (we have to strongly encourage her to complete her french reading each day but it gets done).  But she still prefers when we read together at night.  My Aunt Dee bought this book for Jillian for Christmas, and it's been perfect for us to enjoy together at bedtime.  I love reading a book that was written over one hundred years ago, and to see the life lessons are still relevent.  The vocabulary is great, we are taking our time getting through the book because we pause to talk about certain words or what's happened in a particular paragraph.  I'm really enjoying our evening time together with this book.

Kyle got his kobo touch for Christmas and loves this new toy.  It combines his two favourite things...books and a screen.  We've bought some books from kobo and also been able to get books for Kyle from the library onto his kobo.  Very cool to be able to get books from the public library through our computer at home, then no worries about returning because they literally disappear off the kobo once the 7 or 14 day lending period is finished.  This book, Dragon, is a french book we put onto his kobo (my one complaint about the library system - they need more french books in the youth catagory).  He's also really into this particular author/series lately - The Maze Runner by James Dashner.  I plan to read it as soon as I'm done my current book.  Books is an area where I can and enjoy relating to Kyle.  He has his magic the gathering card game and skylanders wii game, both of which I have NO idea how to play (and quite frankly don't have much interest).  But books are an area where I love reading what he is reading so we can talk about the books and characters.  I read the Hunger Games along with Kyle and enjoyed the movie too, can't wait for the second movie to come out so Kyle & I can have a night out with just the two of us. 

Kyle & Jeff both got their kobo eReaders for Christmas and I pre-loaded a few books for each of them onto our joint account.  I was happy to discover by installing the free Kobo app onto my mini ipad, I also have access to the books on our kobo account.  I'm currently reading Life of Pi and enjoying it so far.

getting fit

My mission this year to be healthier and get fit.  I've been eating healthier and exercising regularly - so far.  It's only been a week and a half and I know my problem is motivation.  To keep myself motivated I've started a get fit in 2013 blog to track my progress.  The goal is tracking in a public forum will give me the accountability and motivation to keep it up the whole year and reach my goals!

www.TheYearIGotFit.blogspot.com

snow shovelling, snow fort & a snow horse

The kids have been loving all the snow we have out front.  Kyle is an expert fort-builder, Leah loves to help Jeff with shovelling and Jillian decided to make a snow-horse...she can even sit on the back.

birthday cake

I started a tradition when Kyle had his first birthday...I made and decorated his birthday cake myself.  I didn't realize I was creating a tradition, I simply wanted to make a "healthy" cake without any sugar (ha ha ha...don't you love first time moms??).  Over the years I've made a cake for each of my kids on their birthday, decorated according to their current interest or the theme of the party.  They have gotten much better over the years...both in appearance and taste (seriously, no sugar in a cake? what was I thinking?).  Since Jillian is a tad horse-obsessed I went with a horse cake for her this year:

Jillian's 8th birthday

a white horse cake in honour of her favourite riding horse Boo

 

Here are some of my favourites from over the years...

Leah's 4th birthday party

Cat in the Hat themed dessert table

 

Jillian's 6th birthday

Barbie cake

Kyle's 8th birthday

Bakugan cake

Leah's first birthday

Mickey & Minnie cake for her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed party

Kyle's 7th birthday

Scooby Dooby Doo!

Jillian's 3rd birthday

Strawberry Shortcake

although the cake itself is chocolate as per the birthday girl's instructions for a chocolate Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake

Kyle's 3rd birthday

Dinosaur themed cake complete with erupting volcano

 

These are the ones I'm willing to post pictures of on the blog.  There are many others which aren't being posted, but they still tasted good no matter how they all turned out!

Happy 2013!

I've decided on something different this year instead of making all the usual resolutions (you know...I'll exercise more, have more patience with the kids, etc).  Those are all good resolutions I know and I do have every inention of exercising more and having more patience with my kids.  But for a resolution I had something in mind for our whole family, including me.  Which is why I have written this on our family blackboard in the kitchen and hope it is a reminder to all 5 of us, especially when speaking to each other...