Boxing day musings

Wow, I cannot believe that it has been almost 6 months since I last wrote on here, just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and I WILL be posting some new pictures soon hopefully tomorrow, gotta tell you all about my newest business venture!!

New Pictures!!

Well I finally have some newer pictures to show you all!

This of course is Cadence and Nyla in the garden,

Gabe at the park on Canada Day,

Cadence (our Baywatch babe) being very brave in the freezing water on Canada Day,

Nyla at the park on Canada Day,

Gabe (lounging)and grandma in her kayak when we went camping last weekend. We couldn't believe how relaxed he was in it. I swear he could stay in here all day!!

Cadence and Stella having a cuddle,

Grandma and Cady on her scooter (grandmas not Cadys:)

Well I hope you enjoyed the latest pics, I shall be back soon!

July already!!

Well, I can't believe its almost the middle of July already! We're all having a great summer so far, this past weekend we went camping at Lost Ledge and it was lovely, a gorgeous, no cloud in the sky, day. We all spent the day on the beach and relaxed and swam. The weekend before, Pat and I had our ten year high school reunion, (I know, can you believe it!) And even though the turn out was kind of dissappointing, we had a great time. Heck I always have a good time if it involves the kids at a babysitter, a few "adult beverages" and some music I can dance to! I'll try to get some pictures up on here soon too as I know that is the main reason a lot of you check this blog out:)

Busy

So, right now I'm helping organize our 10 yr reunion in July, trying to figure out how to get my upgrading done so that I can go back to school in Sept of 2010, doing daycare every day, as well as all the other day to day things of laundry, dishes, cooking etc for five people. Am I crazy? Some days I feel like I'm going crazy. It's not like I'm physically busy all day every day, but my mind is tired of having all these things to think about! I need a month long vacation I think :) Oh well, thats life.
I'm ecstatic that I finished the album I made for a wedding gift. (the wedding was last October!) I think it turned out really well, I'll have to take some pictures of it and post it on here as well as the layouts I did at the retreat. My camera and computer aren't getting along so I'm trying to sort that all out. For some reason the computer will only upload half of the pictures I've taken on the camera and says the rest are duplicates (even though they're not)

Scrapbooking and Birthday Party

Whew, well what a weekend!

For myself I went on a scrapbooking retreat at a place called Dutch Harbour and had a fantastic time. So peaceful and rejuvinating, but also got a lot of scrapping done, 8 pages and 2 cards. I think thats the most scrapping I've done in the last two years! It was great to get motivated to do that again too. I was going to take pics of my layouts and post them but I forgot so I will try and post them by the end of the week. While I was there Pat was here, of course, on his own with all three kids and he took them all to Nyla's soccer and out for lunch with Nancy (his mom, or Grandma Dusty as the kids call her) and then he and the kids I guess went for a drive up the mountain. So they had a great time too and I was quite proud of Pat for being such a good dad. I really didn't worry about them because I knew he would have it under control and he has really come into his own as a father.

On Sunday I came home at about 1pm and then we were off to a birthday party for one of the boys in Nylas class. They always invite everyones families as well cause they have a big yard with a trampoline and a Zipline and a rope course set up in the forest and generally lots of fun things to do. Well all our kids had a blast of course as you can see from the pictures!

Well, hope you all had a wonderful sunny weekend as well. Oh! forgot to mention that the weekend before was Pat and I's 5th anniversary and we had a great time. We had a delicious, peaceful dinner at Jackson's Hole and then went to see Angels and Demons the first night it was out, it was great! Both the dinner and the movie.

Just a little note...

Hey all! Just droppin in to say hi, we had a busy weekend, soccer game, yard work, bonfire, more yard work, Mothers Day, more yard work, and more, you guessed it, yard work! It's so wonderful having a large yard and garden, but in spring it is kind of hellish all the work that needs to be done. Pat trimmed, mowed, raked about ten piles of dead cedar branches, rototilled and burned a bunch of dead branches etc. We are putting in more garden this year, so I walked behind while he tilled and picked out about a million rocks (well it felt like a million anyways:) The girls helped with the rocks too.
Nyla did well again at her soccer game, though she says she doesn't want to play next year, so we'll see if she continues and Cadence has cold so she was sniffling away. Gabe is such a goofball lately and has figured out how to make us all laugh so he is quite the little character. Well I need to get off to bed, but hopefully I'll post some more pics in the next few days. Take care all!

Last weekend

Well, yesterday I said I would tell about our weekend and I didn't get back to it, oops! Anyways, here's a rundown on what we did, Saturday morning Nyla had her first soccer game and it was a GORGEOUS day, beautiful and sunny and warm. She did very well and even had a turn as goalie

Her team won 4-1 and she was pretty ecstatic. So, after the game we went home and had some lunch, then we packed up all the bikes and the bike trailer, the dog, the kids and everything and went to Kokanee park for the afternoon. It was wonderful! Such a nice family day together just the five of us (and Stella of course!) outside doing something fun and active on a beautiful day, so fun in fact that I totally forgot to take any pictures, whoops!

On Sunday we just hung out at home, the weather wasn't the greatest and I felt a cold coming on, amazingly the kids were playing really well and Nyla had a birthday party just down the road. So that's about it really, oh and I finished the second book of the "Twilight" series (563 pages) in about three days, soooo good and I'm dying to read the third! Ciao for now,

Sam

Wisdom tooth part 2

Hey all,

Just thought I'd let you all know that the wisdom tooth issue went well. I was shocked that it only took the dentist about three seconds to actually pull the tooth out! And besides being frozen on half of my face for a couple of hours, it wasn't a big deal at all, hardly any pain or anything. I was kind of waiting for it to get worse but it never progressed past a dull ache. Anyways gotta go now but will try to write later and tell about our weekend.
Sam

Wisdom tooth

Wow, I can't believe its been this long since I wrote on here! Well since spring is finally here sort of, we've been busy clearing and pruning outside and it's been really great getting out there. One crappy thing this week is I have to get a wisdom tooth out on friday, ugh! Hopefully all will go well and I won't have too much pain!(I can dream right?) It all started last thursday my mouth was just killing me and I had a feeling that it was because of this tooth, but I toughed it out the rest of thurs and friday, by saturday I was in so much pain and I could barely open my mouth! So I went to emerg, to make sure it wasn't an absess and he must have seen how much pain I was in cause the doc put me on antibiotics,600mg of ibuprofin AND T3's. I can tell you I definitely wasn't feeling much of anything the rest of sat and sun!! Anyways on Monday it was feeling a bit better (even without the painkillers) and went to see the dentist and so there you go I'm getting it out on Friday.Wish me luck!
Sam

Happy birthday to me!

Well yesterday was my 28th birthday, I had a nice day, pretty mellow and relaxing. My sister Charlotte is here for a few days and she made dinner for all of us and also a beautiful birthday cake mmmmmm yummy! Thanks Charlotte!! After dinner and kids were in bed, Pat, Charlotte, mom and I played trivial pursuit dvd pop culture. On Sunday it was Easter of course and we had Auntie Kim over for the weekend so she was here to colour eggs and to have an egg hunt. Here they all are with all their booty

Gabe colouring easter eggs!

MMMMM Chocolate!!!! Gabe is an addict just like his mom!

After we read the Real Easter story and had a good discussion about Jesus and the resurrection, Pa t took the girls up to the ski hill cause it was the second to last day and they had the Big Splash ( when crazy people try to ski across a large pond which is not frozen over!) and the Dummy Downhill (People make "dummies"or statues and send them down a portion of the ski hill and over a large jump to see how far they go or how big they crash) Here's a picture of the girls beside one of the dummies:

And another one,

Here's a picture of Stella our 9 month old puppy!

After Pat and the girls got home we all had a turkey dinner, so all in all a good weekend and birthday. Sorry, I have to go now but will write again later hopefully!

Spring is here, FINALLY!

Wow I can't believe it's been so long since I was on here! Well the last time I posted below was some pictures that I didn't have a chance to write about, so here goes, the green cookies are St. Patty's day cookies I made for the kids and were a big hit (they were just chocolate chip cookies that I added food colouring to) But I think they were a bigger hit the next day when their poop was green!!! ( I don't think the green pancakes for dinner helped that either :)
The other pictures are of the last friday of spring break that I took all five kids to lakeside park. It was wonderful weather, the only bummer was that Gabe wasn't feeling well. We had a great day, the kids played on the playground for awhile and then we went down to the beach and they all played in the sand.

So that's that and what have we been up to since? A bunch of stuff, last weekend we did a lot of work in the yard, raking leaves left from fall, and had a bonfire, roasted weenies etc. and the weather this week has just been gorgeous! Loving it as the kids and I have been outside all afternoon all week. Oh and we got the trampoline all set up last weekend so the kids have been on there almost constantly! I have been really tired all week and I think it has to do with all the wonderful fresh air we've been getting.
I did a scrapbook page last week and I'm really happy about that cause it's been awhile since I've
done any pages. That's all the thoughts I have for now and its getting late so I'm off to bed.

Sam

spring days

Happy St.Patty's Day!!

Hi everyone and a happy birthday to my brother Matt!

I can't believe it's been a week since I was last on here. gosh how time whizzes by! This past weekend Cadence went to Ainsworth with my mom and the rest of us went to Castlegar again,this time to see the Home and Lifestyle show that was at the college, it was pretty interesting, I'm very excited with my new SHAMWOW that I got he he he. When we got back, Pat and the girls decided to go for a hike. It is so nice that we just have to walk out the back door and into the forest behind us to go for a hike. They had fun and I enjoyed the peace and quiet (Gabe was asleep)

I had to show this picture of Gabe and his hockey stick, 1 1/2 years old and this kid is obsessed with hockey!

Well, today we went to Castlegar to visit Grandma Dustyand Tim and the dogs, Dusty,George and Gracie. We had a wonderful time going out for lunch at Tim Hortons and then we took all the dogs for a walk at Keenley side dam, the weather cooperated and the kids had a blast. The girls climbed on a bunch of rocks and Gabe had fun trying to throw balls for the dogs and giving grandma all his "treasures"

On our way to Castlegar, Gabe fell asleep after snack, note the drool and the bag still on his hand! he he he

I just wanted to say how glad I am to hear some feedback from people, so I will continue to try and keep my blog updated for all of you!

Well today is pretty dreary around here, its cloudy and raining, which has prompted feelings of spring (and the realization that spring break is next week!). The little kids and I started the oh so fun task of spring cleaning, dusting and vacuuming all the ceiling, walls and floors etc. I have been trying to do this at least twice a year cause in a log house, so much dust collects on the top sides of the logs and you wouldn't believe the amount of cobwebs that build up! those little eight legged creatures love these walls! I swear I vaccuum corners for cobwebs at least once a week!!

One of my little helpers, Gabriel.

Anyways, the kids and I have definitely been feeling the effects of cabin fever as the snow hasn't been very good for sledding or anything really, but on friday we went out and did a little spring sledding (as you can see with the dirt patches!) oh well, hopefully all this rain will melt the snow faster and we can go to the parks soon. As you can probably tell I can't wait for it to be summer again, can't wait for days on the beach and camping and hiking etc.

Cadence on her tummy and Nyla carrying her saucer up the hill.

Bear with me as I keep learning how to do this blogging thing,

Sam

Well it's been almost a week since the last time I posted, but a lot has happened. Thursday was Cadence's birthday so we had a little celebration for her. She turned four and was very excited to blow out her candles!

On Saturday, Pat, the girls and I went skiing at whitewater it was a glorious, sunny day and we had an awsome time!

First day blogging

Well honestly I don't know where to start, this is my first time blogging! I started this blog so that our family members and friends from near and far can have a peek into a typical day around here, craziness and all! Hopefully soon I can figure out how to put pictures on here. Hope all have a wonderful day!
Sam