Weekending

I had the shortest but most amazing weekend with the family.  I am commuting weekly to Mexico right now for work and coming home on weekends.  Typically I will fly out on Sunday am and home on Thursday night but due to customer meetings, I needed to stay until Saturday.  My flight came in late and Adrian and the kids surprised me by meeting me at the gate...I could not have been happier or more surprised.  The kids had drawn "Welcome Home Mama" signs and Owen brought me a rose...it really was the sweetest thing...thank you Adrian!

When we got home, I lay in our bed with the kids watching a new movie Ponyo and they fell asleep snuggled next to me...it was bliss!  Then Adrian and I got caught up on each other's week.

On Sunday the kids and I spent the day together out of the house to give daddy a needed break and some time to work on his university work.  We took Oliver for a nice long walk, went to McDonalds and they played in the playcenter and hooked up with the Taylor's for a trip to the bowling alley.  I do not think I have bowled in a million years and we had the BEST time.  Check out the kids cool moves:

We snuggled up again that night and then I left at 5am to come back...bittersweet leaving after such a short visit...but only 3 sleeps until I am home again.

Hello Morning

With the thought of creating a specific scrapbook page, I set out a little while ago to capture a typical morning in our home.  Here are the results:
Adrian takes Oliver for a walk while I get myself showered and dressed.  Then while he gets organized for the day I wake up Owen, usually much more fun if Oliver jumps on the bed with me

Owen and I lie in his bed and sing I Got a Feeling (by Black Eyed Peas) sung by the Chipmunks.  He loves this CD and especially loves this song, I printed the words so we can follow along.  It is such a great song to start our day

Usually Bella wakes up and wanders in while we are singing, she jumps on the bed and joins in.  Unlike Owen, she is not a "natural" cheerful morning person...takes her a few minutes to wake up and smile (on a side note - Isabelle no longer has a soother.  On a recent trip to the dentist just before our Florida vacation, the dentist said the soother was affecting her teeth so that night the NUKie Fairy visited and she has not had a soother since...such a big girl!)

The kids each do "chores" in the morning and I have a chart to keep them on track.  Isabelle is here checking her chart 

Chore #1 - put NUKie away

Get dressed, brush teeth and hair - here she has put her own hair clips in

Make bed

Daddy shaving 

Throw a load of laundry in

Vitamins - gummies for the kids

Make Owen's lunch: sandwich with crusts cut off and cut into triangles, juice, applesauce, multi-grain nacho chips, 2 cookies, granola bar <-- this is his typical lunch/snack bag for the day.  On this particular day he requested a hot lunch, so macaroni and cheese in the thermos was substituted  for the sandwich.

Make breakfast.  Isabelle's current favourite is pancakes or "daddy cereal" (special K or rice krispies) and Owen's favourite is toast or "Nora eggs" (over easy, chopped up with pepper on top)

Eat breakfast

Kiss daddy goodbye as he leaves for work

High - five for the other one...not a big kisser and especially not in the am

Must have been a Monday because Owen is reviewing his dictee words (he has a French spelling test every Monday morning)

Pour juice for himself and his sister

Get dressed to take Owen to school.  Right now that means: snowpants, boots, hat, scarf, mittens and jacket.  It is quite a production and can take up to 15 minutes some days

Get Owen's backpack ready for school - check any papers that need signing, any money for trips etc...

Nora is a wonderful help in the morning and this is usually when she takes over and I leave for work

The 3 of them leave to walk Owen to school and Oliver gets his 2nd walk of the day

This was my favourite breakfast for a while - orange, whole wheat english muffin with nautral almond butter and bottle of water and diet coke...I would eat it in the car while driving to work

Do hair and makeup in the downstairs bathroom

Put on shoes and I am out the door

I am sure right now, as I am in Mexico and Adrian is running things at home in the morning, things look a little differently around our house.  I am glad that I captured these pictures to have a glimpse of what worked for us for a time.  What does your morning routine look like?

The New Bike

Owen's school recently held a Read-A-Thon to raise money for MS. We did a video of Owen here, explaing what he learned about MS at school - he calls it MS Scars, because they explained it that MS leaves scars on the nerves that block messages from the brain getting to where they need to. It is quite cute.

Owen had a goal to read 300 minutes over the course of a few months - well our little reader did so much more than that - he read the most minutes in all of his class - YEAH!

There was also a draw for prizes, for every $10.00 raised, a ticket was placed into the draw. Owen raised $300 - so he had 30 tickets in the draw and won first prize - a bicycle!

His name was announced over the PA system in the school so everyone knew about his prize. When Adrian picked him up from school, he insisted on getting his bike right then. As he and daddy walked home with the bike he was very proud as people came over to congratulate him.

Thank you to all his grandparents for supporting him in his efforts. It has really meant a lot to him.

Here is a photo of the winner with his new bike!

Catching Up

It seems I am always in catch up mode here...I go weeks without any posts and then when I do have a bit of time I do a whole bunch and catch up...I guess that is better than nothing.

I am currently commuting to Mexico for work every week and home on weekends, this is my first week here and the project is scheduled to last for several months.  This is going to be tough on the family, but Adrian and I are doing our best to manage that and stay connected through phone calls and Skype.  This is a great opportunity for me at work and I am so lucky to have a supportive husband, Nora and supportive extended family to make this happen for us.

It may mean, though, that there will be more regular blog posts - I have a few hours in the evening where my time is my own and so it would make good sense for me to try and stay caught up :)

Stay tuned for more...

Valentines Review

Here are some of the craft projects and decorations we had around the house for Valentines Day.

Owen made these valentines for school.  I got the idea from Becky Higgins site and had him draw a valentine on a piece of paper, then I scanned it, shrunk it down to size and printed many copies.  This way, each person in his class got a Valentine with his writing and we did not have the typical battles around writing 25+ Valentines by hand...it was the perfect solution. 

 I took the kids to the Bulk Barn and let them choose which candies they wanted to include in their friend's Valentines.  I filled candy bags (you could also use ziplock) with the candy - folded the scanned images over the top and stapled...voila!  Here is Bella's.  She is really into printing right now and loves to  follow the dots - so I did "dots" here for Happy Valentines Day...she did her name all on her own.

I found a craft on Martha Stewart's site where you take crayon shavings and melt them between 2 pieces of wax paper and then cut them into heart shapes.  Why is it that everything on Martha's site looks so easy and perfect?  This craft was NOT FUN to do!  Shaving the crayons took a few hours, they do not do well in a pencil sharpener, they do not do well in a crayon sharpener, I eventually used my Pampered Chef cheese grater.  Then the cutting - not really great for the kids because the melted crayon made it hard to cut through.  Anyway, we made a ton of hearts, some hung above the kitchen sink, most were on our seasonal tree.  Despite the difficulties with the craft, I loved the results:

Owen made this beautiful card at school for his sister.  Love the bond between those two!

This is a card Owen made for Nora one day at home.  He made the part where her name was into a bit of a puzzle where she had to unscramble the letters...he loves word puzzles like that...I love that he is making his own...so creative!

This is a card that Isabelle made for Daddy.  She started drawing hearts right after we did our crayon craft and I love them so much.  She did all the printing herself, including spelling daddy backwards!

Owen had a Valentine's day party at school and we all pitched in and made cupcakes.  The kids each had their own pan to decorate however they wanted.  Those 2 love helping out in the kitchen...especially when there is icing, sprinkles and candy involved.

Overheard

Recent conversations between the littles:

While watching the Olympics opening ceremonies, particularly the beginning with the snowboarder:
I: When I grow up, I am gonna be a doctor.
O: When I grow up, I am going to be a snowboarder in the Olympics and carry the flag.

While talking about our upcoming trip to Fort Meyers Beach Florida:
O: We are going to see dolphins.
I: I am going to ride on a dolphin.
O: The dolphin won't like that Bella, it won't let you.
I: Yes, I be nice.  I say "Hi, I am Bella" and then he lets me ride on.
I: And I hold on really tight
O: But Isabelle, the dolphins go under the water, how are you going to breathe.
I: It is ok, I just do this: she puts her hands over her face.  I be fine

Happy Valentines Day

January 365

Last year I started a 365 project, taking a photo a day to document our lives over the course of a year. And even though I took photos almost each and every day, I gave up documenting and printing in February. I have no regrets and love to look back on those few weeks that did get documented. So, I have taken on the project again and hope that I get further this year. Here is a glimpse of our lives in January:
Puzzle Girl:Artist Boy:

Last Summer

Here is what the kids were up to in the summer. Click on the images to see them larger.

Tales from the Scales

As many of you know, I have been doing the Weight Watchers program for over a year now and have had my ups and downs. I have lost a total of 60.6lbs to date and am feeling very proud of this accomplishment. I will be reporting my Tales from the Scales on a monthly basis here for a few reasons - to keep myself on track, to share my excitement and frankly to show off new slimmer pictures.

I am almost half way to my goal...stay tuned for updates.


~jen~


BEFORE 2007:

FEBRUARY 2009 - reaching my 10% goal:
APRIL 2009:
SEPTEMBER 2009 5K for Terry Fox:
DEC 2009: