Sunday.....

Church....Smith Family.....Fitzpatrick Family.....groceries....HOME!!!!

Here are a few shots of this very busy but good day.....i like seeing friends but i love being at home more...cuddled up with my boys, laughing our butts off watching AFV....best way to end the weekend!

Yes, here is rock star Russ!!! 

He has gone from music rock star to homemade pizza rock star!!

Its probably a promotion!

 Here is isaac and elliot being introduced to MineCraft.....a very interactive building game. 

 One day we will let you do stuff like this buddy....but til then, we want you to be 'present' with us,

not lost in a video game, gaming with all your friends online!!!

 Cause then we may lose out on the kid who loves to rock out on the playskool music guitar!!

 Hi Nic!

 With all chris's soaking in of website design for this place, here he is sharing

some of his knowledge with Steve and his new site.

 Here is Elliot who just finished screaming like he was being mauled because little girl Adessa chucked a little bit of water on his shirt......

 Yup.....she can take care of herself.....

 She prefers the stealth mode to get into trouble...turn your back for a sec and she will be painting her toes in your bathroom....literally....her toes.......not the nails......here is where we found her after not seeing her for a few minutes.....oh nic...patience of a saint!!! ;-)

 We got home tonight and made up lunches, had dinner and elliot started working on his Valentines.

 He did a great job.....

And here we go for another week!!!

Saturday spent with cousins.....

I want my boys to be good friends with their cousins.....they always have such a great time when they do get together...we just don't get them together as often as i would like.  So, today was a good day for them!!  As you will see:

 The elder cousins......doin it up right.....

 Such a good dad....right in there with them......

 Yes!!! That IS the high diving board....and YES! He did take a running launch off of it!!  And Yes! His little brother jumped off too....well, he jumped off the one right beside it...which is super high too!!  Love that they are water babies!!  {as if they had the choice!!}

My BFF

 Celebrating oscar and ava's birthday a few weeks later, but any excuse to get everyone together!!

 Where there is candy....there will be Elliot....

Happy birthday Oscar {3!} and Ava {7!!}

My dad can't DO fish.....

My poor dad is not too old to learn new tricks!!

The last half dozen times he has eaten fish.....a little while later.....

He is having a party of his own.....

Friday at School.....

I dropped Merryam off at school this morning and have been making it a habit to stop by Kelly's house to grab Evan to take him to school since he is on my way.  Isaac loves the little extra time with his best buddy....but this morning we were pretty early, so we were able to come in for a visit.....nice to catch up with Kelly.
After dropping off the kids, i had 2 hours to kill before i had to be back for milk delivery at the school....so i met nic and adessa for a coffee at starbucks....

Love sample mornings!!! 

 i ate lunch with elliots class today.....elliot wanted to sit with Deklan for lunch!!  When i arrived at recess, he was playing with 3 other little friends outside enstead of playing by himself...so that thrilled me!!!  He promptly ran over when he saw me, to give me a hug and a kiss......

 i just liked this....sweet little song.

 Showing off the little bracelet that he made...it says his name.

 Waving good bye as he was about to leave for music class!!

 Myself and another mom worked on cutting and glueing for an hour or so to help out elliots kindergarten teacher......

 Then it was off to the pool to watch isaac swim with his class...and LOOK who we ran into!!! Jon was working hard {or hardly working??}...but i was glad i brought my suit....did a couple slides with isaac and a whip through the lazy river and a few lengths on my own.....it was fun!

 He loves to swim.....

 No friday afternoon is complete without a little play at the Zalinkos......

Now marty and elliot are having fun on their first solo 'playdate'.....i nabbed marty and took him home for our pizza/movie night.  He ate the pizza and watched a little hamster movie {its a show that we will show Leleini next time she is here .. or have JL preview it...its about a real little hamster and his adventures out in the woods with his friends....}...and they watched a little Curious George...but that didn't last long, they are both off playing now and i am sitting here with isaac.

I am excited for the weekend.....time to rest!!!!

Thursday Family Dinner......

Thursday was a little busier with a morning of cleaning {yup...again, or always!!}...then off to Dans office to work through a little more real estate training....i think he is trying to encourage me towards getting my brokers liscence.....but for now, its just going to be learning my way around all the paperwork and computer programs.....loving my life at the moment with my little community family and my little boys....i don't want to be too distracted away from those fleeting things....

But when i arrived to see Dan....he opened our time with a little prayer {which i loved} and then we walked down to the Garage for a latte before we started into the work.  I really like his company and he is always ready to laugh AND he looks like Billy Joel....

After my time at the office, i raced home in time to unload some groceries and get over to Jennie Lynne's.  Pretty stoked that Rach can pick up my boys when i can't get there in time......so they were already at JL's when i arrived.....the energy at JL's was pretty low key tonight, i kinda think everyone was tired....but it was nice and comfortable with a huge turkey dinner!!  {my contribution was huge....PEAS!!}

 Slippers are super important to the enjoyment of these evenings.....
i learned this initially from my nana!!

 Aw rach...you didn't make it in!!  You probably made it on mels camera...not mine!

 Yes....that is the turkey neck....
Andy would have had to wrestle caleb for it if we were at our house!!!

 Oh how these little ones sleep.....isn't this beautiful??

Really good day.....with lots of blessings to count......

A few highlights from this week!!

Wednesday was good....full day home that included much cooking, cleaning and friends......

JL came over in the morning and we did a little of this before we hit up the local church thrift store:

She wants to buy her own pasta maker now....but why buy when you can borrow??!

While the kids had pancakes, the adults had the fresh pasta with Trish's secret spaghetti sauce and lemon meringue pie:

 Cuddles with the two babies!  Mine looks a little bigger than JL's....but still my baby...

But soon he will be as big as Elliot!!

 

After dinner, it was the mad dash to get everyone to volleyball and to soccer!!  I love that Max and Isaac take soccer together....Jon, paul, derek, chris and myself got to volleyball and there was an incredibly huge number of people there!! A record 14!!!  

It was a nice day.....

Sharing a room isn't enough these days....

Not too sure what has sparked this, but the boys often take turns coming out of their room in the evening (time buying technique? maybe!)....saying that they are scared.  My famous line is 'you have nothing to be scared of until i get up from where i am sitting......'

I told them a few days ago that the reason we had two kids was so that they could help keep eachother company.....so sleep together if you are scared....

so...they did:

It also should be noted that this is Elliots bed.....and upon seeing this picture, my sister was first to chime in "at least he didn't make him sleep at the foot of his bed" {like what i made her do when we were kids.....}...yup....i was the typical older sister.....sorry car!  i think i have made up for my lack of poor judgement as a kid though, haven't i?  All i know is, that isaac is not following in my footsteps....he is the most kind older brother to elliot....so sweet and patient....elliot is sortof like the older brother caught in the baby brothers body sometimes......

Got the kids onto the bus...nice walk this morning.

Jennie Lynn came over for our wednesday morning visit just after 9.....we had a nice visit and capped it off making some whole wheat pasta for dinner tonight.....she loved it.....

JL and I went to pick up Leleini at playschool and then headed over to thrift.....it was fun...we both scored.

The afternoon was filled with cooking: more granola bars, finished the noodles, Trish's spaghetti sauce, prepped the salad and made some pancake batter, and a lemon meringue pie.....ready for friends at 5!!

Kids hopped off the bus at 3:40......home for a snack, home reading with isaac, piano for both boys...

Friends arrive at 5 - and i was wiped!!!

Had it all ready, so Paul cooked up the batter...the rest of us enjoyed fresh pasta and sauce and good company....while the kids enjoys pancakes in front of the tv .. well, the boys enjoyed the movie..but poor leilani noticed a few things on the little video that really upset her.....i felt bad for her...boys just glaze over so many things....we should do toopy and binoo from now on.......

7pm - Time for volleyball and it was a record high of 6 on 6 plus each team had a spare!  14 people!!
Isaac played soccer while elliot played DS while walking back and forth up in the bleachers watching chris and i play, and watch isaac play too.....

Tucked the boys into bed....i just went in to kiss them and they were both in elliots bed falling asleep.....i love them so much....now its on the couch with chris watching the Office and Dragons Den....its 10 now, and i am doubting that Rachel is stopping by tonight....even though the bathroom light signal is still on.....

Saturday!!!

Saturday has lately been 'put the house back together as a family' morning....and then head off to town to run errands etc......well, we did the 'put the house back together' {which thrills me!!}....but then we put a movie on for the boys around 11, and chris and i went back to bed!! 

I had to leave for Kims baby shower...which i did NOT want to miss...but i have been feeling so antisocial lately, that the idea of being cramed into a little room with alot of ladies and that i had to drive almost an hour to get there, didn't thrill me...but i love kim.....alot.....and there were a few friends that were overdue for a catch up....so off i went!!!

And it was wonderful....but at one point, i went in...dropped off the cucumber salad that i had made at Kims request, and since nobody had really seen me yet...i actually snuck back outside to leave.  Do you ever just get these moments of feeling socially incapable?  Well....it washed over me....and i bolted.

Outside, i took a few breaths....remembered why i was there....and went back into the packed house where i was greeted warmly by my friends....and i was glad i stayed.

After some typical baby shower games, too much food {food table had the word EAT on it in lovely big fashionable letters....but when you were seated with the cupcake balancing on your already full belly, and you looked over to the table, you could only read the tops of those letters.....which spelled FAT......we got alot of mileage out of that one.....}

i left to clean the chiro....ah, peace and quiet and cash....all good things to me at this moment!! 

Really wanted to go home and nest up in my warm cozy bed.....but got the call from nic, ash and lana that they were ready to come and meet me in town for some fun.....but the idea of sitting in a pub or even a restaurant....bored me!!!  So....i had them meet me at the dollar store!

They all get out of the car and come into the dollar store.....we gathered at the front doors as they are looking expectantly at me....i pulled out 4 bingo dabbers from behind my back and said "Bingo??"

hahahaha......oh man, we had some fun.  I had got to scope out the place before i suggested it, just to make sure i would want to spend my saturday night there too!!  And it was fun!  We sat next to Betty and Margie, who had been there since 10am and had all their dabbers lined up, with their lucky tokens...and they were hilarious....they helped the 4 of us out ALOT!  Bingo is easy if you are just looking for a couple straight lines or some boxes....but it gets complicated....and at one point, all 4 of us had someone come up and start dabbing our cards for us to get ready for the next round....i had a really sweet native lady who was sitting behind me but nic had a man come to help, and he smelled really bad....so she didn't like that too much.....she actually was the funniest because she would get kinda mad.....i mean, we all would get SO close to bingo...and some other wanker would call bingo!

i liked it.....but lightweight i was, the dabber started to hurt my wrist, so i started holding it like a 4 year old holds their marker...like i was stabbing someone.....it felt good....like getting tension out when i would stab my cards.....my losing cards.....4 of us! 2 hours of gaming....and nobody won...

But ... 2 hours is a LONG time to play...and though we all gorged ourselves at the shower, we were all ready to eat again.....so after our goodbyes to betty and margie....we raced our cars {i won, naturally} to a new little hole in the wall sushi place for a couple of hours of talking and laughing and some {almost} tears.....i drove home feeling thankful for 2 old friends and one new friend.....

i needed this night...even though it almost didn't happen!

Spontaneous decending of a millon little boys!!!

Ok! Ok!  Not a million...but 7 is alot, isn't it?

But let me backstep a little bit, because Friday really was an incredibly huge day....with many many chapters!!

Chapter 1:
Dropped the kids off at school and was off to my eagerly anticipated meeting with Cam.  Cam is my old boss from the radio station who now is an owner in a window factory down in chemainus.  I have always appreciated how his mind works in regards to marketing, budgets, ideas, financial decisions.....he is a bit of a mentor to me.  So...with this new opportunity to work with a realtor that i have come up with and pitched to a realtor that i really like and respect, i really wanted his opinion on what I was seeing for my own future!  He used to be a realtor before his radio days, so that helped too!  I have had a few concerns about the direction I have been moving, and i wanted someone who knew me and could tell me if I was going in the right direction, or if this would be a good fit for me!  {punching a clock=death for me....so creative thinking in a potential future career is key to me at this point!}

Well...the meeting did not disappoint...i walked away with alot to think about, but i really felt like i was on the right track....still so many question marks, but one day at a time, right?!

Chapter 2:
Milk delivery to the little french 'chillun'!!  Some eager mom got there a few minutes before me and got it all done!!!  So, i just played on the playground with isaac and elliot.....

Bell rang and i joined elliot for lunch.....well, i sat at the teachers desk as i watched him at his table full of boys...i also watched him take his little mini pizza that was cut in half, put a 1/2 in each hand, look at his little buddy and pretend that his friend was one pizza half, and he was the other half and then the one half started dancing (or fighting??) the other half!  Complete with dialogue...."i'm gonna eat you!!"  Which i thought was hilarious, but his buddy wasn't sure if this was supposed to be funny, or kinda threatening!  Anyways...he loved showing me his art on the wall.....thats him!  on the wall...."Je m'appelle Elliot"

Chapter 3:
Bell rings at 12:30 for new block to start.  Isaac goes for extra reading help on mon/wed/fridays for 1/2 hour, which is awesome!!  I have seen an improvement in his reading, but according to his teacher, he is still behind in that area, yet, he is doing grade 3 math.....

I read with Dillon {super fast reader}...and another little girl {name??!}, who was such a good reader that she actually corrected ME once!!!  sheesh....

1:15 - 1:50 - Cut 24 clay blocks and helped the whole class make clay faces...after they each made a face with a certain expression, they had to give it a name and write up a story about it.  

Here is Isaacs...he named it "Dragonoid".....

After school was over, i put the kids on the bus home so the lovely Rachel could pick them up and take them home so that i could meet chris at the vets.  Turns out Caleb stopped being able to move and was shaking pretty badly for much of the day.  This has happened before...and it turned out to be a muscle issue and he just needed rest....but chris didn't see it last time, so he was concerned - want to know when i really knew he was ok?  When i saw this face on him during his $70 examination that took 5 minutes!!  See that face?  It's his smile......he is very fine!

However, i should note that the smile was quickly wiped off when the thermometer went up his butt!  Ah....the human-like qualities: his eyes got real big, he got really still.....but then he started to try to slowly sit down...and i was like "umm...caleb, you may NOT want to sit down on that thing!!"

So....$70 and an hour later...we were at home with a million boys!!!

Naw.....two wonderful ladies with their sweet boys joined us for the evening!  The 7 of them seemed to play really well.....Rachel gathered up her crew around 5:30 and amanda and her boys stayed for dinner and a movie....and left around 9:15 and by 9:30, i was in bed...asleep by 10!!!

 Huge long day.....i think it took all weekend to recover....but all good things!!

Memories of Jazzercise....

Thanks E. for the reminder of that brutal morning...

....glad to read that you can now relate. ..

except as i recall, i DID hit the floor...

 i miss jazzercise.

Dear Sharon,

I just wanted to let you know I thought of you tonight.

I thought of you as my runner caught on the gym floor and stopped
while my body kept going and my arms flailed wildly for balance. I
could make out horrified looks on the faces around me as my body
jerked towards the floor. I didn't quite connect with the floor but
came close. I regained composure as fast as I could, smiled and
carried on.

My shoulder is killing me.

Oh I love Jazzercise.

Have a great evening!

e.

Good 'ol Times

The nice thing about having Paul here is that he often brings up friends that we knew from our old qwanoes days!!  Scott and Cor came up not long ago, and now it was a visit from Russ!!

This is how i remember Russ!!  Oh man, we had fun down on the water at qwanoes.....my memory is not great, but i do remember doing alot of laughing with this boy.....and this is how i remember him (thats Danielle...she was cool too, one of my roomies!!)

 Its not many people who would come visit and grab chris

by the bum.....but yup, Russ is one of them!!

 And just for good measure, found this charmer of Paul while i was hunting for an old one of Russ......btw: that is a mans foot.....can you say 'really bad camp dare gone wrong??'....i am happy to say i don't know the story to this picture, but it still makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth.....

Thrift Store Jackpot!!

Chris and I stopped past one of my two favorite local church thrift stores this morning!  I NEVER go in right when the doors open....want to give the local peeps first crack!!  But this morning, it was just the time we were coming through town.....as we were walking down the steps into the burrows of the building where they set up the little store...we overheard one of the ladies talking to a customer saying "oh that?  thats an xbox....it has all the cords and everything.."  Chris and i stop dead...and watch like hawks as the man glimpses at it, picks it up....puts it down and walks away!!  Score!  Keep walking "man-who-doesn't-know-what-he's missing" i am thinking as we snatch it up!!

Our score!

I am unsure why they had so many new in the box toys today, but i am so excited that i was able to replenish my gift treasure box....gifts for my kids friends that we can pull from through the year!
1-Sweet picture (with my purty reflection in it!!) .. it now hangs in our kitchen above the table.
2-Star Wars bilingual computer (yeah French!) May scoop this one for my boys....
3-Magic trick book...pull it out later for isaac?  He will love it!
4-Super sweet little mermaid jewellery box! two of them! brand new!! When is Leleini's birthday anyway!!??
5-Tonka put-together rescue helicopter
6-New kitchen dishsoap scrubbie complete with spare!!
7- oh yea....and a sweet X-Box.....that i am pretty sure we will be passing on....but what a thrill to find!!