Luke's bedtime prayer tonight...

Thank you Jesus for our good day, thank you for Jake and Josh and my hockey day yesterday. Help me to be the goalie tomorrow because I wasn't the goalie last time. Amen.

Summer fun

Julio and I celebrated our 6 years of marriage in and amongst birthday party mania, and here's a picture to prove it! On our actual anniversary I stayed home and sewed while Julio went to a movie with his friend, and we were both very content with that. I'm sure I wouldn've have been our first year of marriage, but I was just mostly amused that my husband was out with a man on our anniversary. Plus I had fun sewing. And he came home with clothes for me, that I like, that fit, that I probably wouldn't have picked out. And I bought him 2 golf shirts which still makes me laugh as he's not exactly the golf shirt type, but they do actually look very good on him. We've come a long way. The next day we celebrated with dinner at Buccacino's where gluten free pasta abounds and options are plentiful, so I was very happy as was Julio, although his chicken dinner tasted more like dessert as it was cinnamon flavored, amongst other things, so that was a bit weird. Almost in a good way. I should work on those run on sentences of mine, see if I can get them just a bit longer, hey?!? I had lovely plans, as I was the planner this year, of doing the river boat thing down to the Forks, having ice cream or coffee there and then walking on the trail back to our car in Osborne Village but it was remarkably cold that day and we were tired so we made the long trek from Buccacino's, to our car (parked about a block away) back to Baked Expectations for some very sweet Pavlova. And over pavlova we talked about triathalon dreams and quickly headed out to St. Vital Mall to buy me runners as I've never really owned a decent pair and Julio just recently got some and has a new lease on life, so we figured it was my turn. There's no stopping me now, a runner I will become. I love and hate the thought of running, but that's a whole other post, so let's just say that, for now, my dream of becoming a runner is just a bit closer to becoming a reality. And being married to Julio these 6 years has been great, I love seeing how far we've come and how much better we know each other now. Apparently the first 7 years are the hardest so we're just a hop skip and a jump away. And for now, we've only committed ourselves for 50 years and then we're up for re-evaluation, so just a measly 44 more to go. We're all about goals around here.

Boy number 2 with a fascination for being in boxes. I keep finding him in the funniest places. The other day he cleared all the potatoes out of the bottom shelf of our pantry and got right on in. And I can't leave the garage side door open without him going on and getting into the bike trailer. Whenever I can't find him in the back yard, sure enough, that's where he'll be, grinning at me waiting to go someplace. He is so funny.Cottage fun with Papa Ron. All the kids got a turn on the tractor, although Sammy's turn was mostly about being stationary.
Fulfilling tractor dreams...
Mr. Adventure, toddling around the cottage.

Pool fun...we just set it up for the first time this year yesterday, as we're in a bit of a heat wave, and they've been having fun with it. Somehow the fun thing to do is to pile all manner of large toys into the pool and sit on them. This is Luke in the lawnmower/recliner.

I feel like this has been my best summer in a long time, and I'm so thankful for the fun we've had so far. I would be happy for another month or two of this!

Birthday Boys

Today we celebrated the boys' birthdays. Yesterday was Samuel's first birthday and on Tuesday Luke turns 3, and just for fun we're throwing our anniversary in tomorrow so we can keep partying around here. We planned those pregnancies well, didn't we?!?
Because I'm tired and it's been a long day, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

This cake was hired out and so worth it! My cousin, Jessica, is a cake decorator and did such a great job. Luke just loved it. And Sammy did too, in the eating kind of way.




It was a really fun day for the boys - Samuel just went from person to person mooching food like he owned the place and Luke was in cousin heaven. They got great gifts, lots of nice clothes and fun toys and Julio and my dad built them a big sandbox which all the kids enjoyed. I couldn't have asked for a better day. Somehow we weren't even running around frantically beforehand; I managed to squeeze in a haircut for Luke about an hour before the party. So now we're in post-party heaven and I'm so relieved. As much as I love a party, I think I love when it's over almost as much.

I just had to squeeze in a few pictures of our baseball night too. We took Luke to a Goldeye's game on Friday as my dad had won 18 boxseat tickets and so we had a fun little crowd out. He had a blast. And can I just say that every penny of those dollarama sunglasses are so worth it, even though he doesn't want to wear them anymore. Nothing says cute like an almost-three-year-old in cheap plastic sunglasses. At a baseball game.

When life gives you lemons...

This could have been a lemon day. First of all, due to unfortunate circumstances, Luke is not yet quite eligible to go to our church's day camp, which is happening this week. He's two weeks too young, sadly. I was somewhat okay with the whole scenario until he saw all the cool props at church on Sunday and heard a church friend get all excited about his week at day camp, and Luke said that he wanted to go too. Then the mother bear in me just couldn't handle him being disappointed for a second and I decided to make this week fun if it killed me. So, Monday was wading pool morning, Tuesday was Gramma Anne Day and Wednesday was going to be "take the bus for the first time ever and go to the Millenium Library" day, with my mom babysitting Samuel so Luke and I could have our own little event. So at 1pm off we went on the city bus for the first time ever. Luke sat very still and was very quiet most of the time, with a few questions here and there. He kept going on and on about this one guy on the bus wearing a seatbelt, when really it was just his bag slung over his shoulder. I was really glad he didn't notice the woman with one partially amputated arm sitting in front of us because she was really sweet and found him so amusing and I shudder to think of what kind of reaction he may have had. Nothing she hadn't heard before I'm sure, as she quickly covered up her missing arm as soon as she saw Luke. That must be so tough. Anyway, here's Luke on the bus - quite the vision of calm, cool and collected, hey?
We arrived at the Millenium Library only to find that it was closed due to a water main break. So with time to kill and the whole downtown in front of us, we made some plans and others just kind of evolved. We walked to Portage Ave., took another bus to the Via Rail station, looked around inside and ended up at the Train Museum. Pretty cool actually, here are a few pictures.

After that, it was a walk to the Forks for some ice cream.
Followed by a trip up to the observation area, where I happened to see a water bus pulling in. I heard they stopped near Corydon somewhere so that decided our next little event!
The water bus! This was my first time on here too, and I've wanted to try this for a long time. It was really pleasant, much better than a bus, in my opinion. Maybe not in Luke's however. He held on to his little life jacket the whole time and after we got off he told me his tummy was sick. Poor guy!
Walking from the water bus dock to Corydon...

And here's our last stop, waiting for our final bus and having a snack. Luke did so well...the day was full of walking and new experiences and he was just wide-eyed, soaking it all in the whole time. He held my hand almost every time we walked anywhere (unusual for him, he's always more interested in running) and was so cooperative. I'm not sure if he was overwhelmed by the experience or truly enjoying it but I'm quite sure that we'll both remember this day for a long time.
I guess you could say that today Luke and I made some lemonade...

A new blog I found, for all you parents out there

My friend's friend Siobhan is a nanny and has this blog about her experiences with kids. Her insights into the mind and life of a child are quite interesting and I just had fun reading some of her posts and thought you might too! Enjoy.

Some recent times...

It's been a while since I've posted and so to catch up I'll just post some pics and hopefully a video, if I can get it to work. We spent a week at the lake, which was glorious and we felt no call to come home. We've been on a bit of a biking kick, so we even managed to squeeze in a few bike rides on the hilly trails out there, which was so fun, if not gruelling at times! Julio is truly a great motivator and is inspiring me to keep at this biking thing, which I surprisingly have been. I've been going to our local wading pool nearly every day with the boys when it's warm, and we always bike which gives me some exercise/quieter time and still gives the boys some fun, so we all win! I haven't brought the camera anywhere, really, however so all you get are the few glimpses when it did come along. What is missing, for example, is the giant hole filled with water that Julio made which Sammy sat in for nearly an hour while Luke and Julio refilled it for him so he could keep talking and splashing. That was way too cute and entertaining. That happened yesterday on a quick trip out to the Stonewall Quarry beach, a lovely little spot if you need a beach close to the city!

Anyway, here are some pictures from our week at the lake...

Everything about this picture screams cute to me. I know you're not supposed to say that kind of thing about your own kids, but any kid in these two positions at these ages would be adorable. Luke is so determined to be "a big man" like daddy and Samuel isn't too far behind. Let me digress from the pictures a moment to tell you about our little Sam. He is now walking, and even more amazing (to me at least) is that he's playing all kinds of sports too. He knows how to hold a hockey stick and hit a ball, while standing, and this morning he was walking and kicking a soccer ball, about 3 times in a row! And then later today, while outside, he managed to climb nearly to the top of our slide, on the slide side. I guess it's true what they say about second children, always needing to catch up to the older sibling! It's true around here anyway. And our Luke is growing up so much. The phrases he comes up with just kill me. His latest is, "Mom, I've been thinking..." followed by any number of random ideas. And today we were both eating ice cream on the couch and he says to me, "Mom, we're in the ice cream section!" How does he even know that word?!? He is also big on imaginative play, which gets confusing as the lines between reality and fantasy are often quite blurred. It's mostly pretty obvious and I think it's good for him to explore his imagination, but the other day he started telling my mom how he milked a cow and she was so impressed until I had to tell her it was all a lie. It's much better when his stories are way out there. Often he says things like, "Me and all my older brothers played soccer" or "Me and Josh went to school and learned things". Or he'll say things like, "I was driving a big truck, and then it was a van, but actually it was a big rock". Hmmm??? I don't always understand the boy, but I'm often very amused. And his two favorite nicknames for others are even more random. We have a little toy that has a button you can press where this little guy says, "Hi, I'm farmer Joe, listen to my banjo!" So nickname number one is simply, Listen to my Banjo. He'll go up to Sammy and say "Hi Listen to my Banjo!" for example. The other one comes from the clean up song. "Clean up clean up everybody everywhere clean up clean up everybody do your share". This one at least gets prefaced with a name, but this nickname is "daddy do your share" or, most often, "Hi "Sammy do your share!" Like I said, I don't always understand him, but...
And here's a picture of Luke and our little buddy Isaac. We love our Isaac and his mommy days, he's our 5 month friend and comes to visit once in a while. Luke does quite well with him too, although Samuel could learn a lesson or two in gentleness. Sammy's so fast and so used to smacking Luke around that poor Isaac didn't have a chance. I don't think Sammy left any scars, however, so there is still a chance of possible future friendship between the two :).
I have to say, even though Luke has his moments of throwing Sammy to the ground, putting blankets over his head, grabbing toys, etc, he also is one amazing older brother. The other day Sammy was smacking Luke on the head and I told Sammy to stop as Luke winced with each blow, and Luke just said, "It's okay mom, he can hit me!" Luke does pretty well with sharing, as well, as the other day Luke had a fruit snack in a wrapper sitting beside him and Samuel grabbed it, and Luke, instead of freaking out on him like I expected just said, "Sammy, you can touch my snack, that's okay Sammy!" Those moments are treasures, no need to dwell on the rest, right?!?
And finally, a video of the walking. Living proof that our Samuel started walking in his 11th month!

A video and a picture to prove we're still around

I loved watching this moment! Luke is such a daddy's boy, whatever Julio is doing, especially if it's some sort of important work, Luke is there at his side. I think Luke was more in the way than not, but Julio is one patient man and they got the job done. And here's a little video of dancing Sam. He is getting so funny. From his spiderman crawl to his dancing moves and his laughing fits with Luke, he keeps us very amused. And just to keep up with all the baby stats, he now has 8 teeth and has taken steps on a variety of occasions. We are also very seriously considering cutting him off from all mush, as he loves to take things that are in his mouth, pull them out, look at them and put them back in. And that is just way too gross with mashed up green beans. So solid food exclusively, here we come! I have a video of Samuel eating, as well, but I think I'll spare you. There's a bit of a Norah sighting in this one too, she's our little friend and came over for a bit one afternoon for some dancing fun.

Sammy walked!

That's the headline news around here this week. Again no pictures or video to prove it. You'll just have to believe me. Yesterday (coincidentally he is 11 months today, so that'll be easy to remember) when Julio came home from work, Samuel was in the bathroom and heard Luke say "hi dad" and he started crawling like mad toward the door. So we all went outside to greet him and when Samuel got close, he started squirming for me to put him down. So I did and he walked about two steps, smiling away, into Julio's arms! What a great moment. This morning he took four little steps from the couch towards his toys and he's getting so solid at standing, so I think/fear walking is truly on the horizon. That, along with his head bobbing dancing moves, are keeping me quite amused these days. And whenever Luke sees Samuel standing by himself in the middle of the room he exclaims, "Look mom! He's just standing all by his self!" I guess we've made a big deal out of it a few times and Luke has gotten the hint!

A week at the lake without a camera

We just got back from nearly a week at my parents' cottage. It was really great and we had absolutely no desire to come back. Well, maybe just a bit to see if Sammy would change his 5:30am wake-up time. Lovely. (This morning was 6:30 and we were elated. That's sad.) But other than that it was an amazing week away, packed with everything a good vacation requires...good weather, time with family, time alone, time to exercise, lots of naps, lots of sand, lots of walks, and even some mini golfing. And this time Luke didn't even pull down his pants and pee on the grass by the first hole, so that was a plus. He waited until about hole 7 and peed more inconspicuously in the bushes. And Samuel just ate, his usual favorite passtime, so golfing was a hit all around. Sadly, I didn't bring a camera to the lake at all but if I did, these would've been the pictures:
Luke raising his golf club in the air after every single hole, cheering for himself, even if it took 10 shots.
Samuel crawling around on the beach in a big hole filled with water and sand wearing grey pants that gained about 5 pounds of sand after getting wet. He was disgusting but so cute.
Julio and I biking a really challenging trail...He's such a good motivator for me! We had so much fun biking, I think I got about 3 good bike rides in and Julio got about 6. The blessing of having parents around until Tuesday!!!
Cousin fun - on the weekend all the cousins were out and they all had such a great time together. The girls just love to dote on Sammy and he just takes it all in, clapping for himself and all the attention. And Luke loves them too and was sad to see them all go.
Roasting marshmallows with Luke. I love how his marshmallow doesn't even get close to the fire really, and if it does start changing colour he says "I don't like the rice on it". Rice?!?
The lake at night...there's nothing like the calm of a lake in the evening. I went for a walk one evening by myself and the smells and the trees and the lake just brought me back to my high school days of working at Red Rock Bible Camp and I couldn't help but say a prayer for all the teenagers working there this summer, whoever they may be, hoping for a touch from heaven and a summer filled with memories.
Sammy in the wagon going to the beach. I can't believe he's big enough to sit up in there already! He's getting so big and his little personality is sure developing. He is such a little jokester, always looking for a laugh. He plays peekaboo now and is about 50/50 with covering his eyes...sometimes it's his ears, or his cheeks...
So now we're back and real life is going to happen again tomorrow, whether we're ready or not. Yikes. I feel like my brain is so full with things to do lately, not the least of which is getting my head around the fact that I'm going to be teaching again in fall! I know it's the first week in July and all teachers everywhere are thinking about everything BUT school, but seeing as I've been out of the teaching zone for a while it's definitely on my brain. I'm going to be teaching just one French course, first semester next year, so it won't be a lot, but enough to give me some stress and excitement. And then there's a Norwex party, babysitting our little buddy again for two days, and a sewing project or two I can't wait to tackle. Not to mention my facebook games addiction that needs tending to. Life can get so busy.

The pros and cons of going to the Ex

Army display:

Pros - hmmmm...thinking hard here...colour coordination? Seeing the inside of a helicopter? Marching band? Seeing Julio light up as he approached a torpedo?
Cons - seeing teenagers looking far too enthused about huge weapons. I don't think Julio would call that a con, for the record. But I can't help myself, I just do.

This is Luke in the helicopter simulator. He could've cared less. It didn't look very helicopterish without the big propellers, who could blame him? The boy beside him was super enthused though.
The rides:
Pros - Luke could do many of them already and loved it. Another big pro is that these rides are about my speed. I've become rather chicken in the last few years and by the grin on my face on the "roller coaster" picture, this is about as much roller coaster as I can handle. Another pro was bumping into church friends so Luke could go on a few rides with them. Although in the helicopter one I think he just looked wistfully at the steering wheels the whole time. On any ride with a steering wheel, of which he had control, I truly believe he thought he needed to steer, and looked pretty serious about it.
Cons - not many. Maybe price. I'm not sure if Luke got $4 a ride enjoyment out of each but apparently my $4 were well spent (see photo below) so I don't know if that counts as a con.


The petting zoo:
Pros - lots of animals, room for kids to roam right were the animals were, cute piglet and goats in a basket, according to Luke. I didn't enter into the hands on area because it was a stroller free zone, but Luke kept talking about the goats in a basket afterwards, so it must have been a highlight.
Cons - sleeping lemurs, signs that say "only a loonie" for feeding the animals (didn't it used to be a quarter?!?), hmmm...that's about all I can think of. (I wasn't totally hung up on the expense, for the record, I just have to think of some cons, to be good and negative I guess.)
The farming area:
Pros - interesting and educational, getting to watch a cow getting milked (that may also fall under con, explanation to follow), seeing a baby chick hatch before my eyes!, seeing laying hens lay eggs according to their colour (apparently white hens lay white eggs and brown hens lay brown eggs, who knew? Not this city girl apparently...), watching Luke take it all in
Cons - identifying in a very serious way with farm animals. Let's start with the cow. The farmer milking the cow did a lovely, if not overly thorough, job of explaining the milking process, from stimulating the utters to get a let down, talking about oxitocin, watching the utters fill up and then drain after being milked...asa a nursing mother let's just say it all hit so close to home and watching him constantly touching the utters was a little weird. (He wasn't a sicko or anything for the record, I'm just a city girl). Now let's move on to the sow. She was in a tiny little pen with all her little piglets and all of a sudden one piglet started squealing and suckling, and before you knew it all twelve or so of them were at it. Talk about survival of the fittest, what an aggressive bunch! And momma sow just lay there grunting, resigning herself to her duty as a sow mother. I'm sure the males in my family did not have the same experience there as I did.
Food:
Pros - I think Julio was happy with the mini donuts and hot dog, as I was with my cotton candy. I don't remember it being quite THAT sweet but it's been a while.
Cons - being hungry for some "real" food and only being able to eat fries (again, this seems to happen to me a lot). And then finding out that they were just a frozen bag from Superstore. For $4. Not that i'm dwelling on the money...

Samuel at the Ex:
Pros - he's cute no matter where we take him and he was mostly happy as long as the food kept coming. We packed a ton of fruit and cheese and what not and kept throwing it on his stroller tray.
Cons - well...just look at this picture. What a mess. The picture doesn't do the reality justice.

Weather:
Pros - the weather started out being hot and sunny and beautiful, and we got there around 3:30 so had lots of time to enjoy the warm weather. As the day progressed though, it got more and more overcast and did rain a little. But nothing too severe and we made it home in time for good bed times for all of us, a HUGE pro in my books.

Cons - crazy winds, people running like it's the end of the world, seeing sand swirl a few hundred yards away (I have no concept of distance, that just sounds good), not knowing where to go ourselves, whether to run and hide or wait it out. The wind died down pretty quick so Julio and Luke quickly hopped on the last ride of the night before it started raining while Sammy and I hovered in fear as the winds picked up again.

All in all, much fun, we'll do it again for sure!

Bedtime prayer

Here's a little conversation between Luke and I at bedtime tonight:
- who do you want to pray for Luke?
- God
- What do you want to pray to Him about?
- ask Him for help!
- for what?
- pipes!
- what else?
- hockey nets
- do you want to pray for people?
- what's people?
- like mom and dad and Samuel and friends and family, anyone really
- I want to pray for hockey nets, and pipes, and volleyballs, and...(more sports equipment, my memory is failing me)

So then we prayed, and then he said, "Let's not close our eyes. Let's keep our eyes OPEN!" I finally suggested that he try just keeping one eye open and that was definitely video worthy, although none was in sight. He then proceeded to sing me a bedtime song, which was something along the lines of, "goodnight, diamond in the sky, jingle bells jingle all the way and daddy fixes it and...(more randomness, getting higher and higher pitched until only the neighbourhood dogs could hear...)"

Two funny things

This morning while I was pulling weeds out of our flower bed, Luke "helped" me. At one point he said, "Mom! I got a weeb!" Or with Menno spelling, that's "Wiebe".

Also, we went to St. Boniface today for a little check-up for Sammy (all is well) and as we walked in to the hospital Luke looked at me and said, "It smells like doctors in here!"

Gardening again!

From our lilac bush...

Julio built a box garden for us at the side of the house. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of plants, and so far have lettuce, peas, potatoes, cucumbers and zucchini peeking out of the ground. We are waiting on carrots and beans. Tomato plants are in as well and are doing great. I'm sure there will be more garden posts to follow!

Here's a few planting pics and a video: