I'm So Excited! And I Just Can't Hide It!!

As you can probably tell from the title, I'm a little excited today! Why, you ask? Well, for two reasons, first, my mom is taking all the kids to her place tonight for a sleepover. Yay! Freedom! Just kidding (sort of :) and second, because this........



Comes out today!!!!! I have been so excited to see the third installment of the Transformers for what seems like FOREVER (well at least since the second one when there was a little forshadowing going on ) So, those of you who don't know me, get a little idea of what a true geek I am :) and for the record, I love all the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Xmen movies as well (oooo and Starship Troopers, the first one). Although, I've never been much of a "Treckie", but I must say, I really like the newest Star Trek movie.

So, I'm off to pack my kids up for Grandmas house and then I'm getting ready for date night, (at home date night, that is :)

Have a good weekend and maybe your own date night too? 

Another fun weekend :)

Warning! This post has a ton of photos!

A few weekends ago (labour day actually) our family had a really great day with my mom and Al on their sailboat. We went up the lake to a lovely beach and spent the day hanging out in the sun. At first I thought our kids would be bored and drive us nuts (they're used to speedboat speed) but they were actually great and they all had a fantastic time.

This first pic is of Gabe and Cady poking their heads out of the berth in the front and catching a breeze.

Next is Pat and Nyla having a moment together.

              And then Pat just has to be a goof :)

       Next we went for a little hike with my mom on the "beach trail" :)

           and yes it made me very nervous that there was a bear in the area, but that just made me sing louder...
         Next is Grandma and Gabe hanging out on a cool tree stump

And my goofy kids (the air horn is to scare off bears too) I love this one :)

                      Nyla was doing her "peace out", so Gabe tells me

and Pat tried to skip some rocks, he's actually pretty good :)

When we got back from our exploring, Al had the fire going so we roasted some hotdogs for lunch...

and ooey gooey marshmallows for dessert :)

On our way back, Nyla tried her hand at stearing the boat, she did really well!

And of course we had some more snacks. Peaches! yum!

Thanks mom and Al for a wonderful and relaxing day!

Apology's

Hi there,
So I know I promised a house tour last week and this week, but unfortunately I've been experiencing some technical difficulties in the form of my camera to computer connection. Urgh!! So frustrating! But, I'm trying to look past this as I work on a solution and I think from now on I will learn from the professional bloggers (which I obviously am not! er not yet at least :) like the awesome folks at young house love who are sharing all things bloggy this week as it's their four year anniversary. Where was I going with this? Oh yes, what I learned is that they don't blog in "real time" meaning they don't say they are going to post something in the next week and then madly run around tidying and taking pictures and blogging at the same time. They plan out their stuff, including pictures and downloading and THEN announce or post a project etc. Hmmm, I'll have to try out this weird thing called planning :) So, I will be setting up the house tour asap, but in the mean time, tomorrow I'll be sharing something we did with my mom a couple weekends ago (which I know the pics are all in Picasa ready to go)  Hi mom!  Thanks for putting up with my rambling everyone!
Sam

House Tour day 2- The girls room

Hi! Today I am sharing the girls' room. My girls have shared a room since day one so they really don't know any different, although Nyla has been making noises lately about having her own room. We tried that last year, as we have another bedroom in the basement, but within two weeks they wanted to be together again because both get scared. oh well :) The girls actually have the smaller of the two kids rooms upstairs, but because of the placement of a few things in the bigger room it makes it nearly impossible for good bed placement. But, before you feel sorry for them, I should mention that even though they have the "smaller" of the rooms, it is still a respectable 12' by 14 1/2'.

The top picture is the view when you first walk in the room and it is Nyla's bed. Then we move clockwise around the room to Cady's bed. The painting on the wall is a self portrait she did in preschool. Isn't it cute? ;)

The curtains, pendent light, duvet covers and Nyla's lamp are all from Ikea. Though I love this set, the girls have had it since Nyla was about two and before Cady was born, so when we move (we're selling our house) I really want to change it to suit their current preferences. Nyla's favorite colour is turquoise and Cady's is pink, so I would love to do their next room in those colours.

 Still moving clockwise we have their bookshelf (we like to read a bit :) and the door. To the right of the door is the closet, all organized in my new laundry system inspired by Sarah  in this post at Clover Lane. I figure since she has five kids, college age to preschool age, so she must have a good system right? And I must say, so far it's been really good, I like not having a dresser or two in their room, one less surface to dump stuff on  :)

Well thanks for joining me on this tour. How do you like it so far? Any info you want to know? Let me know, drop me a line in the comments or email me, you can click on my new email me button on the sidebar. I would really really love to hear from you, I know you are out there lurkers ;) (not that I blame you, I'm a lurker on a few blogs too) Ok enough rambling.

Have a good weekend :)

Sam

Happy Birthday Nyla!

We interrupt this originally scheduled house tour because today is Nyla's birthday! I can't believe she is 9!

Nine years ago today she changed our lives forever (for the good). Nyla, you have always been my snuggly girl and you are so sweet and loving with all your family. I am so proud of the girl you have become and I look forward to watching you grow and evolve into a young woman over the next nine years :)

I love you sweetie and I hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Nyla at nine months :)

and almost nine years :)

House Tour day 1

Good day to everyone! We are starting the house tour from the outside in, so without further ado, here is the "Kozy Kabin"

We bought our place four years ago and have really enjoyed it, but alas, life happens and our place is actually for sale. I wanted to do this house tour for two reasons. First, because it is one of my favorite things to look at on other peoples blogs, and second, to force myself to take pictures of the whole place for when we are gone, to look back on.

So, I hope you enjoy and I'll be back tomorrow with the living room and library/office.

A beautiful, busy, fun weekend part 2

Finally!! Part 2 of our fun pre-long weekend weekend. In part 1 I showed a bunch of pictures of the hike we did on the Saturday, well that was only part of Saturday. The rest of the day was spent on the beach playing in the water and cooling down (it was 34 degrees that day) as well as doing some fun water sports including tubing (this is Cady and Pat)

and my brother wakeboarding. Pat and Matt (my bro) also did a bit of waterskiing and normally I would join in but one of my feet is really hurting and bothering me. But I did go for a tube ride with Nyla and we had a blast!

Gabe asked uncle Matt if he would go with him. Gabe loved it so much and wanted to go again and again! He was also quite upset when we told him (Gabe, not Matt :-) that he was a little too young yet to do waterskiing and wakeboarding.

On the Sunday we packed up and headed home because Pats fire department was having a fun softball game and bbq. The guys set up the port-a-tank for the kids to cool off in and they spent most of the afternoon playing in it :)

Cady and Gabe replenishing their energy with hotdogs :-)

After the game everyone had a chance to cool of in the tank, whether by choice or not as I think everyone was tossed in at one point or another. It was a blast! We all had such a wonderful weekend.

Hope you all enjoyed the rest of summer. We certainly did! Actually we are still enjoying beautiful hot sunny weather, thank goodness, as our July was just yucky. Have a good weekend!

p.s I'm working on a house tour for next week, so if you like that sort of thing like I do, be sure to check back and see our "Kozy Kabin"

Back to School

After looking at everyone else's kids go back to school on different blogs and facebook, it was my kids' turn :-) The girls had their first day back to school today so that meant first day pictures. Here's one with Gabe included even though he isn't in school yet. When I asked him to put his hand down he replied, "I can't mommy it's my mustache!" So cute, so I just let him be and I'll definitely have to scrapbook about it :-)

And just the girls. Cadence is in grade one and she was so excited for today to start going to school all the time with the big kids. Nyla is in grade four and she was pretty excited to go back to see all her friends.

Gabe and I walked the girls down to the bus stop and I caught this picture of them as I was trying to keep up and adjust my camera settings at the same time. They were all so cute.

                                                  Waiting impatiently for the bus.

                                               Here it comes!

And off they go...

When we got back to the house, Gabe proceeded to tell me we needed to pack his snack in his backpack for his school. This is his reaction when I explained that he wasn't going to school...

He was soooo upset! Poor little guy, he'll have to wait one more year. But, we had a nice long cuddle together and decided what to do today. Plans included playing cars and trucks, giving the dog a bath, making cookies, and building some bridges and structures with blocks. Needless to say, my boy wasn't sad for long :-)

 

I must say that I'm pretty happy that fall and school are here, the last week has been a long one with a lot of bickering and fighting (a lot of fun stuff too) but I'm not sad that summer is over, well, not yet anyways! I have some plans to do a bunch of organizing and decorating starting next week.

What are your plans now that the kids are back in school? Do you have a little one who is sad to see siblings leave? Are you happy, sad, excited, depressed that fall is here and school is back?