getting ready for baby and some leaves

That's my uncreative title for today's events. Oh yeah, and it's Halloween. I'm sure that'll be fun too. We borrowed costumes from a neighbour and plan to do a little walk around later, and then have friends coming over to play some games so it should be a fun night.

I think I'm officially nesting, except I've had a nasty cold all week so it's been hard to be productive. But with the help of some amazing people (Sheri-Lee and Julio), the baby room has been transformed since Thursday from crazy brown stripes on the wall amongst other colours to "oyster mushroom". And there is no longer a crib in my living room, along with other baby paraphenelia. I just came from sitting in the newly transformed room (it still needs some little touches here and there but at least it's painted), trying to imagine holding another little baby and doing this all over again. Somehow I think it'll be even more fun this time around, as Luke is so into things and understands so much, and it just feels so amazing to add another person to the mix and see what it'll all be like. The boys were so great today too, letting Julio do the painting this morning and helping to put on drawer handles, etc, this afternoon...Luke is just the most enthused worker ever. I hope that continues as he gets older and has more real skills! Samuel is more into climbing and tried to climb on every available precarious surface as we tried to get the baby room back in order. I have to say, Julio has been AMAZING wtih all of this. He didn't think we needed a baby room transformation and so I said I'd paint, but that didn't happen and he willingly prepped and primed the room on Thursday, including taking off the door and some of the door frame to get the crib out, then Sheri-Lee spent all of Emeth's nap painting away as I watched the 3 amigos wrestle and have fun downstairs, and then this morning Julio finished the painted, cleaned everything up, and helped put everything back in order. I managed to make curtains and a cushion cover yesterday too so I felt I contributed a bit. It was a nesting mother's dream come true. He even said how much he liked the room, the colour and the red curtains. What a guy. This is probably the most boring post ever I'm realizing. Moving on. (But not before a show a few pictures).

While I ran a short errand this morning, after the second coat was drying and pre-organizing, Julio and the boys had some fun in the leaves. Here's proof:

And here are a few pictures of our pumpking carving day a few days ago. As expected, Sammy was right in there digging out the goo and Luke was gagging on the sidelines. Good times.A little pumpkin craft I did with Luke. Lots of his friends are in preschool so I feel the need to whip out the scissors and glue once in a while, to clutter up our bulletin board with construction paper too.

Boo! Happy Halloween everyone!!

family weekend to remember

This was a great weekend. Often on weekends, we don't plan much and sometimes wish we had and the time slips by and before we know it, it's Monday. But this weekend we did a ton of fun, family things and just enjoyed being together. It's so great to be able to do more and more things with the guys and know that we're creating some lasting memories, at least for us.

On Friday night we had fish and chips at home, which was a real treat. We used to go to Fergie's at the Forks for fish on Fridays but since my gluten scandal we haven't. I had a craving and my amazing husband cooked up a feast...he's the best. After that, we went to Pan Am Pool for some swimming fun, and it was really great to see the boys get so into it...plus the water was pretty warm which helps. I could hang out in the kiddie pool there without kids, just because it's warm. It's nice that we have kids now so we can justify doing things like eating cotton candy at Tinkertown and sitting around in warm water. I digress.

Saturday morning the biggest treat of the day was that we all slept through the night until nearly 8am. Lately Sammy's been making his way to our bed at some point in the night, and comes to my side of the bed, and hours later I wake up and find him there, completely unaware of when he came. This morning I found myself squished between Sammy and Julio, on my back, with my arms above my head like a pencil. Not so comfy at 8 months pregnant. But the night before...sleeping bliss. On Saturday morning we had crepes, and then went to a hobby shop and bought a rocket and launch pad and engines for some rocket fun. Julio had made a rocket with the boys about a week ago and just wanted the engine to launch it, but we didn't have a launch pad so we got a kit that had another rocket in it. It was fun to look around, especially for Julio, as they had a ton of model boats, cars, planes, trains, etc there. At one point Luke looked at Julio and said, "You can't buy everything you see you know!" The man at the till kept joking, saying things like, "which kids are getting this for, you or them?" I think it was his classic line...sounded like it wasn't the first time he'd used it.

Saturday night we went to Marble Slab Creamery which was so delicious and even had some great options for me which was so nice. Amaretto ice cream with skor chunks...yum. Then we went to Indigo Books, which Julio had never been to and which has an amazing kid section, so the kids played and we looked at books and relaxed...a nice end to the day.

And today was the grand finale of greatness...launching rockets in the park with our good buds, Stephen and Benjamen K, and Kevin, Robyn and Claire. There are some videos below that shows the fun. The kids and the adults were enthralled and it was the most beautiful, warm fall day. We ended it off with snacks and a baseball game where all the kids got home runs every time.

With three weeks or so to go until this baby arrives, it was nice to have a weekend to relax and enjoy time together. It's so hard to believe that before we know it life is about to change forever yet again.

35 weeks

After babysitting my boys for two hours while I was at a doctor's appointment, my lovely sister Robyn took these pictures for us. The photo shoot ended abruptly when Sammy got a stool leg in the eye...he's okay, but it shook me up a bit and I was wearing a white shirt and there was blood so...these are the best of what we got.

Hot off the press

Some stories from this morning...

This one I like to call "Luke and Gramma Anne's sketchy theology"
Luke says to us this morning: "Do you remember that chocolate bunny I got from Gramma Anne and Papa Ron? How we went with that rope, and it went over that thing (the banister) and we got chocolate? Gramma Anne told me that when Jesus dies on the cross again we can have another one!"
And Sam, this morning, has been playing away while we lie in bed, building with duplo and sucking on his beloved soother. So finally I started pulling it out of his mouth when he came to visit us in bed, and he said, "I go ni-night". So he hops into bed with me and sucks away. Then I tried to pull it away and he's just craning for the silly thing, finally I give in, give it to him, and he looks at me and says..."I'm happy".