big blue eyes

9 years old!

How can it be this amazing kid, who is smart and funny and sweet, is nine years old already?  I truly feel blessed to be Kyle's mom, and I can hardly believe it was only 9 years ago I became a Mom.

We started out the week with a pool party for Kyle and some of his friends.  We had 7 kids here, plus a younger sister of one of his friends to play with Jillian, and it was the perfect number of kids for the pool and backyard.  They hung out in the pool and we did some swimming races (all won hands down by a good friend of Kyle's, a family friend, who swims competitively and is truly amazing for an 8 year old!).  Afterwards the kids had fun squirting water guns and having a water balloon fight.  I love this age because I only had to provide the activities and the kids just had fun amongst themselves..I bought a bunch of cheap water guns and filled a laundry basket with water balloons (I delegated the filling of water balloons to Jeff).  Kyle had so much fun with his friends over.  Having a pool and a summer birthday is pretty cool!

Today was Kyle's actual birthday.  We started out with our family tradition...measuring the birthday kid on our wall in the kitchen.  I remember on Kyle's first birthday Jeff made a mark on the kitchen wall to show Kyle's height at 1 year of age.  I have to admit I was a little peeved at first, I would never have chosen such a prominent spot for a height chart.  Now 9 years and 3 kids later I love looking at it, this wall that shows our growing family.

Since Kyle is the early bird in our house, always up first, I like him to come down to something special on his birthday so I pick one gift to leave out on the table which he can open as soon as he comes downstairs.  Once everyone else was awake we opened up the rest of his gifts.  A new DSi to replace the old ds which is not working (and not worth fixing).  I found one packaged with a new game which was a good deal.  Also some new books (Percy Jackson in both english and french), lego bionicle which are his latest obsession, baseball glove and ball and some new game accessories (so we can charge the game systems in the van on our road trip!).

For his birthday dinner he chose chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate milk.  And instead of cake he wanted a giant chocolate chip cookie.  Hmmm, bit of a chocolate obsession...he's more and more like me every day!

Happy Birthday Kyle!

Good-bye Sam

Today we said goodbye to our amazing nanny, Sam.  It was one year ago Sam joined our family, and she really did become part of our family.  The girls especially became very attached to her.  Kyle spent less time with Sam than the girls as he was in school for most of the time Sam spent at our house.  But the girls spent a lot of time with Sam...doing arts and crafts, going to the playground, getting dressed up and painting toenails.  Sam also helped me out so much around the house...I always came home to a neat and tidy house and baskets folded laundry.  And she was amazing at arranging playdates for Jillian, sometimes having several of her friends over here.  From other parents, to Jillian's teacher, everyone always had only the nicest things to say about Sam. 

We will miss you so very much.  And I hope you know you are always part of our family!

As for what is next...Jillian will be starting grade 1 and in school fulltime along with Kyle, and Leah is signed up to start in September at a preschool in our neighbourhood.  It seems like an excellent preschool, I've had a good feeling every time I've visited.  I do know Leah will miss spending her days with Sam.

kidcamp weekend

The big kids and I spent this past weekend away at kidcamp organized by our church.  Kyle and Jillian had so much fun and so did I!  We were there with some great families from our church, about 40 of us altogether.  The kids all get along so nicely, even if it was a bit crazy at times in the retreat centre with more than 20 kids running around.  There was lots to do, worship and singing with the kids, roasting marshmallows over a big campfire, playing games and also some time spent at the beach swimming and sliding (a water slide that goes into a lake, cool).  We also used the paddle boats and kayaks...Kyle did a great job on the kayaks.  Actually, Kyle and Jillian did great all weekend...they listened to all the instructions, followed all the rules and just generally had a great time.  One of the organized games was a parent game where 3 kid/parent combos sit up front and each group was taken out, then questions were asked and we had to write down the answer we thought our parent/child would give.  Kyle and I did awesome and won hands down with the most points!  There was also messy splat olympics for which I was happy to be a guest judge instead of a participant ;-)  Kyle's team won so he came home with a first place medal. 

I didn't bring my camera to the beach or for the activities so I don't have many pictures (gasp!).  However, I did take Kyle and Jillian down to the water one morning when it was calm and snapped a few nice ones to capture the lake...

While we were away for the weekend, Jeff and Leah went to see these guys at the zoo...

Leah did really well and had lots of fun with Daddy.  There were some sleeping issues, which I expected since I still stay with Leah until she goes to sleep most nights, and it's not unusual for me to be up with her in the middle of the night.  It was really sweet to see her when we came in the door and give her a big hugs, I missed her a lot.  But it was totally worth it being away and getting to spend lots of time with just Kyle and Jillian.  I really think it's nice when they get to do some big kid things without a toddler along for the ride.  And Leah had some fun 1-1 time with Daddy.

a big first for Leah

Tonight will be Leah's first night away from me.  I'm heading a few hours north this weekend with Kyle and Jillian for kidcamp with our church.  Which I'm sure will be a lot of fun...there's some fun things planned including splat olympics (very messy!).  But it will be hard to be away from my baby.  Jeff will be with her all weekend and I know they will have fun.  I'm a little worried about nighttime, as I am still with Leah every night when she falls asleep, and she still wakes in the middle of the night sometimes. 

Yet another milestone!

picnic time

We went to an annual picnic this past weekend organized by our workplace. It is held on the grounds of a local day camp with lots of fun activities. We started out watching a reptile show and then had some ice cream (what's summer vacation without ice cream in the morning at least once?). I was surprised when Leah, my child who is afraid of bugs and freaks out at every speck of dirt she believes to be a bug, didn't flinch about touching the huge snake which could possibly swallow her whole. Go figure!

After ice cream and games it was time for water slides and swimming for Kyle and Jillian.  Since Jeff and I were too lazy to change and take Leah into the water, she gathered rocks.  It's fun being the third kid.

Then it was time for lunch, picnic style of course.  And finally bouncy castles, slides and crafts.  Even for Leah!

Kyle got to do the basketball relay with the Toronto Raptor.  Overall a fun event enjoyed by our family!

pictures of Leah

I've heard about the theory of the more children you have, the fewer pictures there are of the last child.  A theory which doesn't hold true for this camera-happy mommy.  When Kyle was born we had a basic 35mm point and shoot.  We took lots of pictures, had them all developed (with doubles!).  When Kyle was 2 years old we bought our first digital camera.  Oh man, I was in love...I get to take tons of pictures to get the right one and only print the ones I like...loved it!  Once Jillian was born there were even more pictures taken.  And I used to get them printed regularly for scrapbooking (ha, I'm currently around the 6 month mark in Jillian's first year scrapbook...which will be finished...at some point).  I have since given up on printing pictures until I am ready to start a project with pictures, or need some recent ones to put in a frame.  In fact I have moved onto digital scrapbooks which is why I currently have this blog...my daily account so I don't need to go back at the end of a year and remember everything.

In the past few years I've started to really love taking pictures.  I'm no expert, and I still just have a canon point and shoot.  But I do enjoy snapping away.  At some point I'd love to take a course to learn how to take really great shots.  For now I just weed out all the not-so-great ones.  There are many as I tend to take a lot of pictures trying to get the one I really want. 

And this brings us to my third baby (who isn't a baby anymore!).  As you can tell from this blog I take a lot of pictures of the kids.  I do make a point to take some with each child on their own, which means lots of pictures of Leah.  I don't want her childhood to be chronicled only with her siblings.

These are pictures I took one day as I grabbed the camera every time I saw her doing something cute.  These are taken 2.5 weeks post-surgery, the blood clot and her black eye are almost completely gone. There is only the tiniest mark from the incision which I'm sure will heal over time. 

First I took some of her in the hallway to get a few pics of her in this cute dress as this was her first time wearing it (she has become rather picky in the clothing department, much like her big sister). 

Then it was time for some funny peek-a-boo and jumping in the backyard.  Once we came inside she spent some time at the craft table colouring and cutting up the colouring book (her new favourite activity). 

And finally, onto playing with the lace up beads, intently working on threading each one.

This is just one day of picturess with Leah. My adorable third child who will have just as many pictures (if not more!) as her big brother and sister to look back on one day.

Aunt Chris

My kids love spending time with my sister.  Unfortunately she lives quite far away and we don't get to spend as much time together as we would like.  But the time she does get to spend with the kids is always lots of fun, with both her and her husband.  On a recent visit the kids had lots of fun splashing around in the pool with Aunt Chris and Uncle Sam.  For a day or two afterwards little Leah was still walking around saying "ant kiss?".

art collection

Jillian is naturally very creative.  She has always enjoyed colouring, even from an early age.  And has always had good fine motor skills.  Leah is taking after her big sister, I often see them sitting at the craft table or kitchen table together making artwork.  Almost every day Jillian draws pictures,  paints or makes something creative.  And she almost always gives them away to family and friends.  This is one of the many pieces of Jillian artwork I have in my personal "to mom" collection.

going...going...gone!

We are ready for another fly-over by the tooth fairy!!  Jillian's second bottom middle tooth has been wiggly for a while now, but tonight more than ever.  Here she is earlier today...she wasn't feeling so great, she seems to have caught whatever bug it is I had.

While laying on the couch all afternoon without any energy, I guess wiggling a loose tooth is about the only thing to do.  So tonight we had the tooth going

going

and gone!

This definately cheered up my sick girl.  After laying on the couch all afternoon and even having a decent nap early this evening, she still went to bed close to the regular time (with a dose of tylenol).  Hopefully she feels better tomorrow...I'm sure she will once she looks under her pillow ;-)