soccer video

Ivan has his last soccer game on Sat. It has been exciting to see him trying something new, but I am looking forward to having our Sat. mornings free again and Brian not having to skip out of work early to take all 3 kids to practice (which coincides with the water aerobics class I teach).

The library called me today to see if I'd talk to the newspaper about using the library since I am a frequent user. Who me? Just because we're up there at least once a week and have two bags, or three of materials at a time? OK, yeah, we're very frequent users. We use about everything they have up there- kid's library time, special programs, children's dvd, sound recordings, computers, puzzles fiction and non, adult fiction and non, adult dvds and documentaries... Can you tell we love the library? Hey, it's free and I'm part scottish and they brought me a book I wanted to read from New York the other month. How cool is that? Yep, for FREE! Plus it's just down the street from us. They brought me 4 books this week from all around the city. When do I have time to read? Well, I'm still nursing Emora, so that restricts my movement. Then once the kids are in bed usually. I can read pretty fast though when it's interesting.

Do you use the library? What do you use there the most?

Emora's 1st halloween party

A couple of weekends ago, the girls and I went to a halloween party for my water aerobics' class. I got to see all the babies that were with us in class all that time, only now they were decked out in costumes. These older siblings were also in class a few years earlier. The girls are all born within a month or so of each other, but the babies are a little further spread apart. It's always so great to see the babies after all our "hard" work in the water.

Emora is wearing the same costume Dominique used for her 1st year. We have it as a room decoration. I'm glad I'm not making any costumes this year. Dominique is going to be a fairy. We have an outfit and I'm going to paint her face. Ivan wants to be a mega super hero. This includes an outfit we have, a police badge, his light saber and super hero face paint. Yeah, watch out!

Do you have any halloween traditions? If you have young kids, what will their costumes be this year? Are you dressing up?

the hay ride

Here are some pictures from the hay ride. The kids love tractors and riding things, so this was pretty high on the scale of fun. Emora is still wanting us to help her walk everywhere. Each morning we find her in her crib standing up and she pulls herself up on stuff all the time. She now does the full crawl on knees and hands, but will make it known that she wants up on her feet if anyone is in reach.

When and where was your favorite hay ride?

pumpkins and parks

Sat. we went to the pumpkin patch. We already had 3 good sized pumpkins at home, so we just got 5 little decorative ones out at the patch. Pictures to follow I'm sure once we have them decorated. We got one for each of us and are going to color us on them. Should be fun. The kids enjoyed seeing all the different pumpkins and loved the hay ride. Had to go on that twice.

These pics were from a park visit with our friend Logan and his mom, Valerie who live on our street. The boys liked to pretend they were flying the airplane, then they all played in the pretend fire truck. This was a while back, since it was the day I found out that Emora had 3 teeth coming in, which quickly became 4 teeth coming in.

How many pumpkins do you have at home? What all do you use them for?

We will draw on the small ones. Carve the big ones and cook them all for pumpkin recipes all year! We like to roast the seeds and throw the skin in the compost. It's fun to us to use them all up!

hope these make you smile!

Ivan made himself a pretend lunch from playdough.






Dominique made herself a pretend lunch too.




From nanna's visit.







that's one cool girl.









Our best shot of her top teeth coming in. Bottoms are coming up too, hiding under that big tongue.

our yesterday

We had a big day. Ivan had his last session of speech therapy. It was so sweet. Last week, Miss Robyn said that she was sad that he was doing so well because that meant she wouldn't see him anymore. After, he said to me that he was sad because "I love Miss Robyn SO much". So he picked out a wooden box with a heart handle and painted it for miss Robyn with her name on it. This week, he was not wanting to say the words. He hesitated each time, wondering if he should say it right, because he hated it being his last time. She showed him the same evaluation tool she used the first day, when he said "tup" for cup and this time he said "cup". We are glad to have our schedule more open again, but we did really love Miss Robyn. She gave us so much, not just with the help he got to speak right, but with the positive "classroom like" experience.

We went to Ivan's favorite lunch McDonald's and he had soccer practice that night. Also, Nanna spent her last day here. She took all three kids out to pizza and ice cream so that Brian and I could go out for a grown up meal. Did you know they have tables at restaurants for just two people? They are so cute! ha, ha. We went to our favorite place, about the only place we eat out and the manager came up to us and said he was a bit surprised to see us without our entourage (ie. 3 noisy, cup spilling, mess making kids- but he said it a lot nicer).



Nanna did great with the kids which is an amazing feat. She was also shocked that Emora could pack away so much food and gave our girl her first taste of ice cream. I'm pretty sure that is not on the recommended food chart for her age, and Nanna informed me that she ate the whole cup worth of it, but she didn't puke the night away and slept like a pro, so maybe she is ready for dairy foods! ha, ha. Give it to Nanna to figure it out. Yeah Nanna! I am looking forward to weaning her. Her new teeth are not the most comfortable fit, but we'll make it a few more months of nursing I'm sure.

happy 5th Ivan!

Ivan decided that since he doesn't want to share birthdays anymore that he is going to always have his on the 18th from now on. He will still turn ages on the 20th, but the 18th is his day. Fine with me, I didn't know if I liked sharing all that much either! ha, ha. The party was fun. We were trying to do it smaller, so we just invited 6 of his friends, with their siblings and parents which made it huge. Usually only half of the people we invite make it, but this time everyone did. So we were very pleased when the day turned out so pretty and the kids could terrorize the backyard. We would have never fit in the house. Ivan got way too many gifts, but was a perfect birthday boy during his party, very thankful and agreeable, so that was nice.

He had a bat theme and we made a volcano cake with bats flying around it and a batman coming out of it. It was half chocolate, half strawberry with choc. and strawberry icing (box cakes!). No pinata this year!!! Too much work and money. We got cheap pizza and it was so much better on our stress level than trying to grill for everyone. I'm trying to convince Ivan to wear his I'm 5 hand shirt that we made with all his little guests at the party. 3 friends didn't want to do their hand print, which was probably good since we ran out of room. We have all been having a blast playing with Ivan's toys. Two of them we haven't gotten to try yet because they involve rocket like blasting outside and it has been very windy today.


Nana is also here and took us out to a wonderful birthday dinner. I think she is also going to keep the kids so that Brian and I can go out tomorrow for MY birthday ;) Ivan won't be totally left out. He has his last speech therapy lesson tomorrow, after which we will bequest his special requested for lunch at McDonalds.

Should I ask?

I had told the kids to get into bed, while I went to get water. When I came to their door, it was closed. I opened it and Dominique was standing on their book nook/toy box. She looked at me, her eyes grew wide and face alarmed. She grabed her butt and jumped down, walking backwards to the bed face toward me shielding her butt. Should I ask what she was doing?

NO! Because I've been disciplining them all day and it's time to get in bed and we are all too tired to deal with another thing!! ha, ha. That's called the lazy parent, or picking your battles, whichever slant you feel like giving it that day.


We did have a good day. I took the kids to Teepee Village at a local university. The sororities each research a tribe, create a camp and display and discuss it to the hundreds of school kids that invade the campus for the occasion. What was hard was that Ivan and Dominique acted like scared kids I keep locked in their rooms! Emora wanted to be carried, so I held her and pushed the stroller while the other two hid behind my legs. After talking to a friend and hearing Ivan retell all that he had heard (so he really was listening!), I realized that it is his fear of all things new that spurred the behaviors in him and Dominique (who was following suit) and that one of the ways to help him gain confidence is to keep doing new things with him. He kept saying how he only wanted to be with our friends or do our regular things and not be around people he didn't know. But then you could tell he was excited about all the things he had learned.

Our Saturday mornings

This is what our Saturday mornings look like these days. It is a good thing Brian is mister organized and on time, because otherwise we would never get our crew there in time for kick-off. As it is, we are usually one of the first and Ivan can warm up some with the coach and other players. He is getting more confident each time. There are only a few games left though and I don't think we will cry too much over getting to sleep in again. I especially love these mornings when it is dark and cold. The kids don't realize that it is time to get up and I can sometimes get an extra 30 min. or hour under the covers- ahhhh. Gotta love it while it lasts.

I found this last video in my file that I had uploaded months ago. I can't post any of our recent videos or pics since they are still trapped in the old computer. But Brian ordered a cable today where we may be able to recover them. This was when his mom visited and we were trying to get a group picture. We couldn't figure out why the camera was not responding as normal, until we uploaded them and realized that it was on video setting!!! Do we look like idiots or what?

video group portrait

Loving face paint!

We recently got a book with pictures of different facepaint creations and real face paint. First of all, the paint ROCKS! It is so way better than the halloween makeup out there. So far, Dominique has been a fairy and gotten fake flip flops twice. Ivan was a super hero, then rocket from the Little Eintein's videos and this flame guy. Dominique is really into the painted flip flops right now. She was in a fancy dress the second time I painted them, so that time I made up my own design to match her denim dress accented with flowers and pink ribbon. Ivan takes the longest time to pick. He likes the full face creations.

My current desktop picture

Hope you are having a wonderful day. I'm about to crash. I don't know how just regular daily life can be so tiring. My major accomplishments today included getting the dishwasher loaded, making supper and one load of towels. But then I have to offset that with the purely delicious moments like when Emora kept bubbling over with laughter at her siblings, when Ivan hid in places the adults could not even find him and when we got to make cards with a friend for her nephew with cancer. Yep, most often, all those accomplishments that we really wish could get done are not very important in the long run.

Gearing up

We are getting ready for Ivan's birthday. We are trying to make it simple and let him invite his 6 closest friends, but by the time you add in their siblings and parents, it's still a lot of people. He chose a batman theme, so I managed to get all the kids out to the craft store for supplies today. I only had to ask for help about 6 times, but it wasn't my fault, they moved everything. The store employees were super nice though and the kids did amazingly well. So that was a huge relief.

Ivan pre and post haircut. He is loving soccer and getting more and more confidence each time. Last Sat. we only had 5 players so he got to play most the game. He kicked the ball 3 times in a row working it down the field toward the goal. It was exciting. He also fell and got up, then ran in with another kid and came off for a while to recover. They bonked heads pretty good, but I think mostly his pride took the beating. He didn't want to go back or have me set him down, until the coach said "come back in Ivan" and off he went as if nothing had happened.

Emora is getting toothier by the day. Still not visible in pictures, but she has 4 front teeth making their grand entrances. Looks to me like she'll have a gap between the top teeth, like her momma and brother. She can stand on her own for a few secs, but hates it. Here she is supported some by the couch. She is still not doing a full knees and hands crawl, but loves to stand and walk with help.


I came home to this the other day. They have a bag of dress up clothes and were they ever having fun. Dominique wore her costume the entire day. This isn't what they'll wear this year for halloween. This is just regular weirdness.






Speaking of... I found a hat I had brought back from Canada for Dominique and she decided that day that it was her favorite thing ever. She wore it for a couple days straight before misplacing it again.

back online!

Woohoo!!! I'm typing on our new computer- a gift. Thank you to the gift givers!! The kids played in the box all night while Brian was setting it up. They had a total blast. I pretended they were mailed to me and that I needed to send them back. Then they played pop goes the weasel, with them being the weasels. Then put toys in it. Then Dominique got in it, Ivan propped it back up and she knocked herself over in it. The fun never ends. I actually have a great book about a kid who gets the superest new computer and so excited she got the box. But in reality, they are pumped about getting to watch videos again and go to their favorite web sites. I just ordered a bunch of prints online that I was uploading when the other computer monitor went out, so at least we have them. But Brian thinks there is a way to get the hard drive off the other unit, and things look promising for that.

Emora can stand up for about 5 secs. by herself and screams like a banshee while doing it because she doesn't like the fall. She is also growing all four front teeth. I have yet to get a good pic. of them, she's very sensitive about them. I was sick all of last week, so even if the computer had been up, I probably wouldn't have posted much. Then Emora ran fever. She's over it now and is just battling the teeth and a rash. I don't know maybe she's allergic to sweaters? It got "cold" here.

I'll try to upload pics and videos soon.

Thanks for hanging in there.

Computer is down

Sorry there have been no posts. Angela and Brian's computer is down.
Angela's sister, Jenn