Let's see...What's new?

Well, there's not too much new going on around here really. The hype is for Halloween for sure since it's George's favourite holiday. He and Kyle have been making window decorations and having lots of fun. We went to see the Halloween train at the park tonight too, but certainly didn't go on since it's quite scary and way too much for Kyle! Heck, it scares me - the guy with the chainsaw is the worst!

Kyle has his costume all ready. Nana (my mum) made him a Thomas costume and he loves it. That was what he wanted, so that's what he got and mum did a fantastic job! I can't wait to take some pictures of Kyle in it. I should have been able to do that today since the kids were getting dressed up for Kyle's Kindermusik class, but the boys are both all sniffly again! I think I was more disappointed than he was since we didn't talk about it with him too much today to avoid too much disappointment.

Nathan's costume is one that we had given to us by Auntie Randi. It's a little bear costume and she gave it to Kyle because I used to call him my little cuddle bear. Unfortunately, by the time Halloween came along, it didn't fit, but it's perfect this year for Nathan!

We had nice visits with both sets of parents/grandparents today! Everyone needed their baby fix at the same time. Dad is going out of town for a week, so he wanted to see the boys before he left and George's parents hadn't seen the kids for about 2 weeks, so they popped over for a visit too. We did well in the food department as a result too because we met mum and dad at Tim Horton's and dad treated everyone and then George's mum brought us food too - as usual!

Nathan seems to be growing so much these days and doing new things all the time. He's figured out how to climb the 2 stairs to get out of our sunken living room now, so he has access to the whole house! He seems to quite like Kyle's room and it's soon to be his, so I guess that's good! He's also pulling himself up on everything. I went in to get him after his nap yesterday and he was standing in the crib for the first time. Busy, busy!

Oh, we have something to look forward to next weekend too. Scott and Toni (my uncle and aunt from San Francisco now) are coming up to see everyone. It's been far too long and we're really excited about visiting with them! Can't wait for them to meet Nathan and Sophia (Tracy and Brian are coming over for dinner too) as well as see Kyle again. They'd never recognize Kyle! Should be a wonderful visit!

Well, think that's about it for now. I should go get working on getting ready for my scrapbooking retreat. Yes, I said retreat! I'm going away in a few weeks with mum for the weekend to scrap and the boys get to stay home together! Looking forward to it, but I want to try and get organized before I go so that I can get lot accomplished while I'm there!

Better go do a few things before bed. Hey, I have an extra hour tonight with the time change! Yeah!

Cheers,
Colleen

Simple Pleasures

I was doing this scrapbook page today and thinking about the little things that we do as a family that make me (and I hope all of us!) so happy. One of them is what this layout was about - family outings. I love it that George loves to plan little outings on the weekend and surprise us with fun things to do. And when I say fun, I guess they're mostly fun because we're out doing something together: a walk, a picnic, a trip to the pumpkin patch. I hope that they're things Kyle and Nathan enjoy and will continue to as they get older.

As the quote on my page says "Nothing is worth more than this day."

Colleen

Book Boy

Yes, Kyle really does love his books. We have a bookshelf that while it's not completely full, has lots of choice! We read every night at bedtime and Kyle and I have also been trying to do it during the daytime a little when Nathan lays down for a nap. Kyle would sit and read for as long as you'll let him and will now also go in and read "to himself". He, of course, has no idea what's actually written in the books generally, but I'll hear him in there making up something. Sometimes it'll have a bit of the real story that he's remembered and then added to and sometimes it'll be completely his imagination at work.

George is also really good at making up stories and Kyle loves this. I do it, but not as often for sure simply because by the time bedtime comes, sometimes I'm just to tired to engage my brain! Kyle will often ask for this at bedtime now too along with reading books and singing songs. He also has to have both of us in to say nght, so this is not a short process!

When I walked by his room the other day, he was laying on the floor in front of his bookshelf with his headed propped up and his legs corssed with a book in front of him and he was rambling away. So, what does a good scrapbooking mum do? She goes and gets her camera!!



Cheers,
Colleen

{A Day at the Pumpkin Patch}

OK, now this feels like it's really fall - our trip to the pumpkin patch. So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, we tried to go on Tuesday and ran into problems with them suddenly deciding not to open. I still haven't heard anything after calling twice and I'm going to e-mail them, but we knew we'd be going because Kyle was really disappointed when it wasn't open.

We decided to head out this morning and be there when it opened to try and avoid some of the crowd. We were actually pretty surprised that it wasn't that bad, especially because they're calling for rain off and on this week. I wanted to go before the rain started because it was so mucky last year after it had rained for a few days.




After getting there, we decided we'd do the wagon trip out to the patch first and pick our pumpkins. Kyle loves the wagon ride and there are musicians that sing and play on all of them. We took the sling for Nathan so that I could walk around with him "attached" to me and he did pretty well. We took him out for some cute pictures too. Kyle had fun picking his pumpkin and he got one that's not too big. I picked a medium sized one and George had to have a bigger one of course! The only thing for him was that he has to carry all of them back, but at least they give you bags for them. With me carrying Nathan and holding Kyle's hand, I couldn't carry any!

We did the wagon trip back to the main area and decided to hang out there for a while. Kyle wanted to sit and listen to the band that was playing for a while. He also wanted to hug characters that they have: one dressed as a big pumpkin and the other as a big cob of corn.


We also went over to the play area with all the hay and I had my first heart pounding moment with Kyle. George was putting Nathan down in the hay for me to take a picture and I was watching Kyle. In the time it took me to look down at Nathan and take the picture, Kyle had turned around and headed behind us to where the music was. There were so many kids and when I looked up, I didn't see him. Panic set in quite quickly as George and I spent 30 or 45 second looking for him before I hear this "Mummy!" from behind me. Oh thank god! It wasn't very long, but it was long enough to get my heart rate up and felt like much longer! Needless to say, this is not like Kyle at all and we had another talk about this!!

There wasn't too much else for us to see, so we decided that we'd get some mini doughnuts on the way out and head for the car. As I was standing in line, Kyle decided he wanted to go say goodbye to one of the characters and by the time they came back, Kyle wanted to stay and listen to more music. We sat down with our snack and watched Kyle do a little dancing before heading home. Even without the rain we were all pretty dirty!

It was a really great day despite my little heart attack! It's just so much fun watching Kyle have fun!

Cheers,
Colleen

Keeping myself busy too!

I'm also scrapbooking at a fairly crazy pace these days and having tons of fun with it. I'm trying to get some memories into books for the boys as well as just scrapbooking some family outings and holidays. This is one I did recently of some pictures of Nathan and I after a nice walk a couple of weeks ago.


I love this hilarious picture of Kyle and his big Elmo all tucked in bed with him and even with his blankie!

I'm really looking forward to going to my scrapping weekend next month too. Mum and I have gone the last two years and George gets the boys for the weekend again this year! We go up Friday evening and come home Sunday after lots of scrapping, not much sleep and tons of food! A great weekend!!

Well, better go get a few other things done while the boys are still both napping!
Cheers,
Colleen

Where does the time go??

I just have no idea how it got to be almost the middle of October already! I see it been longer than I thought since I posted here - as usual!!

Let's see...what have we been up to? Well, the colds that are going around certainly have hit us in the last little bit. Both the boys have now had 2 colds fairly close together. I managed to miss the first one, but not so lucky the second time around. That meant that we spent the better part of last week at home trying to get all of us healthy again which was really too bad considering how gorgeous the weather has been.

Nathan seems to have been hit hardest by the bugs. Finally took him to the Dr last Friday after him just being sick for a while and seeming out of sorts. Good thing I did as I found out he had an ear infection. The Dr put him on antibiotics since he was all congested and had been sick for a while as well as having the ear infection. Well, I took him back again today since he didn't really seem much better and the Dr agreed. We're going to finish the course of antibiotics he's on as well as give him some Dimetapp and hope he gets better over the weekend. If not, we may have to try something else, but I don't want to give him another antibiotic if I can help it! Wait and see.


We had a busy long weekend last weekend with Thanksgiving. Kyle is still going to his music class so we did that on Saturday morning and did some picking up around here and getting ready for Monday. Sunday night we went out to mum and dad's and Tracy, Brian and Sophia were back from New Foundland in time to come too! It was great to get together and we had a little extra time to visit since mum and dad's oven wasn't cooperating and the turkey took a little longer than expected. Poor dad was stressing, but we all told him it wasn't a big deal and we weren't going anywhere!

Then, on Monday, we had all of George's family over here as well. There were 14 of us for dinner I think and we cooked the turkey and everything. George's mum did a ham too. George did the turkey on the barbeque and it was great! Just had lots of dishes to do afterwards!

George took Tuesday off as well because we wanted to take Kyle to the pumpkin patch, so we didn't have to do it on the weekend when it's crazy. We did it last year on a Saturday and it was nuts! Anyway, we get there and they're NOT OPEN!!! They said is was because they didn't have any groups booked, so they decided not to open.

I have called there twice now and they have someone calling me back because I'm MAD!! It's ridiculous when it says nothing to that effect on their website (like they may or may not be open depending on group numbers) and they advertise as being open!! I want free tickets considering we now have to go on the weekend when it's nuts. One of the girls said they'd had lots of complaints and I'm not surprised!

Poor Kyle was so disappointed he was crying when we left. We've been telling him for days we were going and he was so excited! I think we're going to try and go early tomorrow before the crowds and the rain that's forecast for later in the day.



So, Tuesday we ended up going over to George's parent's since they live not far from the barber that he goes to. Nathan and I stayed there while the Daddy and Kyle went and got their hair cut. We have to keep Kyle's short because he has a double crown and when it gets long at all, it sticks up like Alfalfa! We stopped to see Opi on the way home too.


I guess that's about it for us right now. Keeping ourselves busy for sure. And it's hard to believe that Nathan is 9 months old today! He's into everything these days and though he's not crawling, he gets around "commando style"! I'll have to get my monthly pictures of him taken today sometime and we're trying to get him into Sears for a few too.

Well, better run for now, but hope to have some good pumpkin patch pics to post this weekend with any luck!

Cheers,
Colleen