busy weekend!

The weekend was GO GO GO for us, but all fun stuff.  Friday night we had an overlap...Jeff, Kyle and Jillian headed to church for a potluck and family fun night while I took Leah to a Halloween party hosted by her best friend.  We joined everyone else at church after filling up on yummy H'ween themed treats and dancing to the monster mash.

Saturday was study day for Jeff (another course has started - the part-time MBA which seems to be neverending). The kids and I were up and out the door way too early in the morning...on the road by 7:45 to get to Oakville for some very neat workshops at Sheridan college put on by abcontario.ca. We even ran into our good friends there, fun! After a long day, I was ready to crash on the couch, thankfully Jeff was up for taking the kids back to church for an evening of marshmallow roasting by a large bonfire.

 Sunday afternoon we headed to the AGO, finally, after Jeff purchased our family membership months ago. Their new family centre has recently opened up and is very cool. Tons of craft supplies so the girls were in craft heaven. It was family sunday which meant lots of activities including a neat artistic hoop performance followed by some hoop fun for everyone.

I discovered Kyle and Jillian are both really good at hoola hooping!

Thankfully not all weekends are jam packed like this one, but I do feel blessed we were able to spend time with so many friends this weekend.

it's the simple things...

One of the benefits of my online shopping addiction hobby is the bubble wrap.  The other day I happened to have 3 full pieces and the kids couldn't wait to get their hands on them.  Yes, we do have the bubble pop app on my ipod, but nothing quite compares to the feeling of popping them yourself.

I was watching them and thinking how nice it is that something so simple made them so happy.  Then I realized I'm not all that different.  There are many simple things that can make my day.  Just the other day I was practically giddy when I found a starbucks giftcard in my wallet I'd forgotten about...Leah and I enjoyed an unexpected latte and hot chocolate in the middle of the day. 

Two days ago a former colleague from work passed away from breast cancer.  My heart breaks for her husband and 2 young children who are very close in age to Kyle and Jillian.  It made me think of all the little things I love about my kids.  Sure there are the biggies like seeing them hit a milestone, graduate from school, etc.  But it's all the little things that seem to make life matter...an unexpected hug from Kyle, the "just one more kiss" at bedtime from Jillian, snuggling with Leah on the couch.  I hope as my kids get older they never stop finding joy in all the little things in life.

On a side note, I took this picture of Leah on the floor and absolutely cannot believe this is my "baby"!

role models

I've recently been prompted to think about the values I would like my girls to strive for, and the ways I plan to influence and encourage them.  While I work on that post, it got me thinking about the kind of role model I want to be for my girls and some thoughts I had about this when leaving the workforce earlier this year.

I have a degree in computer science, which is traditionally male dominated (although that does seem to have shifted a fair bit since I went to school in the 90's).  Which I thought made me a good role model...you know, the girl who went against the grain and did a computer science degree, competed against guys to get my job and move ahead at work.  I thought it showed a sense of "you can do anything" to my daughters.  But then what was I saying to them when I left my career to be a stay-at-home mom?  The fact is my focus shifted significantly once I became a mother.  Over the past 10 years of being a working mom our family has grown, Jeff's job became more demanding and family life became more chaotic.  The pendulum of my priorities shifted significantly from work to family.  Leaving work to maintain some sort of sanity in our family life was definately the right choice for me (not to mention maintaining my own personal sanity!).  But I did struggle with being just a stay at home mom as a role model for my kids.  I finally decided that having a sane mom trumps everything.

Now that it's been 7 months of being at home full time (wowsers - 7 months already?) I have a different perspective.  I see the difference in myself and how I'm interacting with my kids at the end of the school day and on weekends now that I don't have the additional stress of work.  I'm also able to see the good parts of what I'm showing my daughters.  I see myself as someone who is able to focus on what's important to me...first it was school, then career, now family.  I hope when they grow up that's what they are able to take away from my choices.

By the way, the reason I'm thinking about all of this is because of a really cool campaign, you should check it out!  www.bethevoice.ca

Disclosure– I am participating in the Barbie I Can Be campaign by Mom Central Canada onbehalf of Mattel Canada.  I received compensation as a thank you for my participation.  The opinions on this blog are my own.

the influence of a big brother

Last weekend all 5 of us spent the afternoon at our local skate park.  Kyle absolutely loves his razor scooter, and has been asking over and over again to go back to the skate park to try out the ramps and half pipes.

While Jillian and Leah are both adventurous girls, I do think having a big brother helps encourage certain traits.  For example, I don't think Jillian would have quite the same enthusiasm for her scooter without having a brother obsessed with his.  And while going to the skate park wouldn't the the top of her list of to-dos (most of hers include crafts and the colour pink), both Jillian and Leah had tons of fun riding their scooter and trike.  I don't think Leah could look any cuter with her trike and helmet...her cuteness never fails to make me smile!

No family outing is complete without a snack according to my kids!  (honestly, you would think I don't feed them at all with how often they eat).
We ended the afternoon with some family races.  Leah even won a few...of course she skipped the whole loop and just went straight for the finish line ;-)

dress-up and cars

I love that Leah is into cars, trains, puzzles and building blocks.  But at the same time, she absolutely loves anything she considers pretty...dresses, jewelry, purses (rarely leaves the house without her owl purse, usually contains toy cars!).  Lucky for Leah she has an older sister who adores anything girly which means we have quite the selection of princess dresses, shoes, crowns and other accessories. 

When I took these pictures, Leah had come downstairs after getting herself all glammed up and said "do I look like a mommy now?" -- which I have to say is absolutely hilarious considering *I* dress nothing like that...I spend my days in jeans and a tshirt, and most often wear little to no makeup.

Sam

The girls were oh so very excited when Sam (our amazing former nanny) and her fiance visited during their trip home this weekend.  The girls enjoyed tea with Sam, I enjoyed chatting, catching up and hearing about wedding plans, while Kyle entertained Anthony with the lastest in Pokemon cards and video games.

Jillian was sad saying good-bye at the end of the visit (I had to literally peel her off Sam's leg).  But we'll see them again soon hopefully.  And we even have a tentative visit planned for next summer since Sam now lives near a very nice beach.

reading

Even though we are still working on the alphabet (Leah can be a tad, shall we say, stubborn when it comes to working on her letters), she does thoroughly enjoy reading books.  I figure we will stick with what she loves and continue reading...based on what I know about my little girl, she will learn the letters when she's good and ready.  This is afterall the little girl who didn't speak at all until she turned 2 years old.  Despite all kinds of prompting, Leah just wouldn't talk until SHE decided it was time.

 Lately she's been reading the stories outloud herself.  While it's neat to hear her recite the simple books she has memorized, my favourite is listening to her read other stories and make it up as she goes along with the pictures.  Even better than that is when she reads in french (or gibberish, as it sounds like to the untrained ear)...listening to Jillian read outloud in french each day has Leah thinking she can do it as well!

fall is here

Fall is here and even though we have only 1 measly tree in front of the house, the kids are thrilled to rake and make a pile of leaves (however small!) for jumping.  The girls had a great time helping me get the garden cleaned up for fall including some final weeding and pruning of all the perenials.  Since they are both so interested in gardening I'm going to try really hard to get moving next spring on a veggie garden in the backyard.

what we've been up to...

I've been remiss on blogging so I'm going to do a little post on what we've been up to the past few weeks...

In mid September we had a final visit to the cottage, cleared everything out and said our goodbyes.  Although owning a cottage didn't work out for us (for various reasons including the amount of work to be done and financial), we did discover we love that area and it's a very nice beach within driving distance for a day trip.  The day started out chilly but ended up being a beautiful day for a walk on the beach.

Some things we have been up to around the house are...

Kyle finally received this book he pre-ordered online with birthday gift cards...he is an avid reader and loves this author and this particular series

Leah has been enjoying the little red tricyle which has been well used by all 3 kids.  Jeff's mom bought this for Kyle on his second birthday.  It makes me smile to know Leah is learning to ride a bike on the one Grandma bought, even though she never got a chance to meet Mary

We've been taking advantage of the beautiful weather and playing out front a lot after getting Kyle and Jillian get home from school.  Hopscotch has been a recent favourite.