A LONG overdue update!!

Ok...so it's been many a week and month since I've posted anything on here....AND....since I crashed my van and presently have no vehicle to drive and am stuck at home every day....I decided this was the perfect time to post some new pictures. :P

About the van....yes, I totalled it about 3 weeks ago. (Still kicking myself) I had a rental for about a week but as soon as they settled the claim they wanted it back and we want to wait until the new year to buy something. So.........Trev is now my chauffeur. He has to drive me everywhere. At least it's one way of spending more time together ;).

So, the last time I posted pictures was back in September. I'll just post some from some of the stuff the boys have been doing this fall.


This is Halloween night. Seth went as a prisoner, Jonah was an alien, Sam was a fighter pilot and Jude had to take his turn as the kitty ;).



Jude taking a flying leap into the leaves.





At the beginning of November Samuel was "Student of the Week" and I got to come in and have lunch with him one day.


This was the bulletin board all about Sam that week. Note what he put under "hobbies" right at the bottom. Oh dear....I feel like a really great mom :P



My Seth turned 12!!!




At the end of November, the boys' cousin Troy came and spent a weekend with us. Jonah was THRILLED. They spent one afternoon stuffing their clothes...pretty kooky but they had fun :).



the whole gang



Just throwing a picture of Jude in there...just because I think he's cute ;)



This is Samuel's birthday party. The boys went skating at the rec centre and then we came back to our house for the rest of the party. You would not believe how much noise seven 7 and 8 year old boys can make...wow!!









On November 29 Seth was baptized. I am so proud of my son...what an awesome decision he's made! Paul and Chris came out for that weekend so that Seth's Grandpa could baptize him. That was incredibly special and we're so thankful to them for doing this.






This is Jonah's birthday party in early December. We took the boys glow bowling.



Jonah turned 10!!





Samuel got to make gingerbread houses at school again. That's always a fun day for them.





Even Jude got to make one. Here he is with his one-eyed pose again.



These pictures were just taken yesterday. Jonah and Samuel are in swim club this year....but it's their first year so they're in the non-competitive levels. Yesterday they had their "Skills and Thrills" day where they got to get a taste of competitive swimming. The very first race they did they put Sam and Jonah together. Guess who won??





That's it for now. I'll try to post a little more regularly from now on. I wish you all a very very Merry Christmas!!!

Bye bye crib!!

Hooray!!!! ;) We finally went and bought Jude a bed the other weekend and packed away the crib for good. I'm so excited....no tears here whatsoever!!! Jude was pretty excited too...all the next day he would say "I'm going to look at my new bed". So cute.

One last picture in the crib.





Helping Daddy build his new bed





He was so proud :)





He had to try out various positions



And a nice cuddle with Daddy



We got the bed just in time for Grandma's visit last week so she was able to stay at our house for a couple of nights. The boys absolutely loved that. Jude slept on the floor beside her and he kept telling her he was going to snore and keep her awake. He was so tickled to have Grandma there. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures at all....grrrr. And she's leaving today. Oh well, next time.

First Day of School

The boys started school last week Monday. One week down!! ;) It was a good week...busy but good. Today I finally went through the STACK of papers from school that was sitting on my table so I'm feeling much more organized....(although many of those papers required the writing of a check...that didn't feel so great lol). Anyway, the boys all seem very happy and really enjoyed their first week. I think it's going to be a really good school year :). i made requests for each of their teachers and found out in August that I got them except for Sam's. So 2 days before school started I decided I would be that "meddlesome mother" I sooo don't want to be....lol. I went to the school to see if their was any chance and any room for Sam to get the teacher I requested. I'm very happy to say....it worked!!! They were a little reluctant but agreed to switch him. The only reason they were hesitant about it is that they were hoping to put another girl in the class if they needed to....at this point the grade 2 half of the class is 9 boys and only 3 girls. I feel a little sorry for the girls but am VEEEERY happy Sam got in there.

Here they are Monday morning...ready to head to school.





Seth and Ms. Andrew....she's a fantastic teacher....and tonnes of fun.



Jonah and Mrs. Milz....I heard she's a very kind a gentle teacher...and super good with boys. Jonah really likes her.



Sam's checking out his new desk.



Mrs. Gushulak....AMAZING woman and teacher. Sam actually had her for about 4 months last year when his teacher took a leave of absence. She's a Christian woman and created such an awesome teaching environment. The kids just loved her. And now Sam gets her as his teacher for 2 years!! Yay!



This was on Friday afternoon. One week of school done and Jude is anxiously waiting for his brothers to come home.



Seth...already carrying chocolates for fund-raising. He's fundraising for his grade six week of camp in October. They go to a YMCA camp for one week. We had an information night at the school last week and it sounds like he's going to have a lot of fun. I brought home one box of chocolates from that night and Trev sold the whole thing at work the next day....so he called and said to tell Seth to bring home 2 more boxes. LOL.





Here comes Jonah!!! So sweet.





Here are a few miscellaneous pictures from over the summer.

Last weekend we took the boys to see the Military Museum. They've been wanting to go their for months! Definitely not a trip we'd have made if we had girls ;).

















One of Seth's dramatic moments while visiting the zoo. :D



Jude showing off his muscles at the beach :)



Jude sitting and jumping on Jonah while he's buried in the sand



Playing football with the Reimers



And before I end this post, I want to say a BIG HUGE thank-you to all my family and friends for all their hospitality and the wonderful memories they gave us back home this summer. We had a fantastic time and we love you and miss you all!!!! Smooches!!!

Jonah's beach day

Here are the pictures from Jonah's beach day on Thursday. Jonah's class had just finished a unit on "boats and buoyancy" so they all had to build a boat to test in the lake. Jonah made his out of styrofoam and water bottles.'



Jude had his own boat to "try out" too. :D



I noticed something a little interesting on this beach day....note the following:

Jonah swimming with the girls:





Having lunch with the girls:



Being buried in the sand by the girls:



Hmmm....apparently the girls seem to like hanging around with Jonah. I think I may have to start paying more attention....lol.

Ok...he did spend some time with the boys as well:



And one pic of my little cutie Jude:

One More Day!!!

Does anyone else feel like the month of June has just FLOWN by?!? I can't believe the boys have just one more day of school left...well, actually half a day. At noon tomorrow they're officially on holidays. :)

Between the 3 boys being in baseball and going to see the "Dawgs" games whenever we get a chance, this month has been filled with baseball. It's been a lot of fun....I'm almost sorry the boys' season is over. Jonah had his last game last night and the other 2 finished last week. After 6 weeks of baseball, I'm not sure what I'll do with my evenings now ;).

Sam absolutely LOVES baseball. He gets on the catching gear every day after school and he spends HOURS in the back yard practicing. He even eats breakfast with his ball glove on!! :)







Seth was on the pee wee level this year. They had a tournament last weekend and his team won!! He's pretty excited about it. It was hard to get pictures of him but I did get one of him in outfield.



Here's Jonah during his last game just last night. Since Trev coached his team, Sam got to play on the team as well....so he's been playing 4 nights a week!



Seth got to ump quite a few of Jonah's games. If no parent volunteered, Seth was more than willing to step in. There were times parents weren't always happy with his calls...but he actually did ok. That's Jonah on 3rd base.



Sammy's back catcher.



The boys hanging out and having fun after the game.



The boys even have Jude playing baseball...lol. After watching his brothers play every night of the week, he now wants to play too. It's pretty cute.



He actually hit this one.



Running bases :D





Ok...enough of baseball. Trev had a birthday this month. He's now 39!!! He's caught up with me ;).





The last week of school is always so fun and exciting for the kids. It's filled with fun activities and parties. Seth's gone swimming twice, they've had sports day, and Sam and Jonah both have beach parties. Sam's was yesterday and Jonah's is this afternoon. Here's some pics of Sam's day.



All the kids got a water gun as a "end of the year" gift from their teacher.







Sam and his friend Sam :)



The boys had fun burying themselves in the sand. That's Sam and Jude at the end.



I'll post some pictures of Jonah's party tomorrow.

Hair Update

So I took Sam for his haircut and they fixed it up just fine....blue mohawk and all. :D

The long weekend

We had a pretty quiet May long weekend. We stuck around home. We had some REALLY nice weather on Sat and Sun.....FINALLY!! But Monday we were back down to 1 or something ridiculous like that.

Anyway, Saturday morning we did the baseball thing. Sam had a game and Seth had a practice at the same time. Trev took Saturday off so we went separate directions that morning. The afternoon was mostly relaxing...I prepared a nice shish kabob barbecue for dinner... but in the midst of that Jude had his lip split open AND Sam decided it would be a good idea to cut his own hair. Aye ya yaye!!

Sam was swinging a bat in the back yard and had moved Jude out of the way and told him to stay....buuuuut, of course, Jude walked right into Sam's path. It bled quite a bit but it was amazing how quickly it healed. By the next morning it was closed and didn't bother him at all.



While I was getting dinner ready, I saw Sam climbing up on the fence....well, apparently he got tree sap (he thought it was glue) in his hair and decided that instead of telling me about it, he would go and just cut it out. I didn't even notice until Trev pointed it out later at the dinner table. I was NOT impressed!!!! We're going for a hair cut after school today.

Isn't that just lovely??? ;) I DID even it out a bit before we went out the next day. LOL! WOW...first time I've dealt with that one.




On Sunday we went out to Drumheller for the day. It's the land of the dinosaurs!!

First we went to see the biggest dinosaur in the world. Very cool. We could have climbed up the inside of it to the top...we told the boys we'd do that next time we go out there.





After that we headed out the the Tyrell Dinosaur Museum. That was pretty amazing. If anyone has a kid that's into dinosaurs...THAT'S the place to visit!!













Then we headed out to cross over a suspended bridge and check out the hoo doos. The boys loved being able to do a bit of climbing and exploring

















I was going to post this last week but never got around to it. I was able to go with Sam on his field trip last Tuesday and we went to Fort Calgary. It's all about the Northwest Mounted Police and how Calgary started up.

At one point the kids all sat on a "train" and role played a story. It was a true story about a convict that escaped the police while being transported on the train. Sam got to play the "convict" role. It was pretty cute..the kids all loved it.

He's seated between the Calgary Chief of Police and a Northwest Mounted Police Officer. :D



Here he is with 4 buddies dressed up as North West Mounted Police.