Photo Safari

"Fwend" looks depressed today.

Sometimes Ike likes to take pictures of... stuff. Random stuff that he likes. I don't know if giving a 3-year old a camera is a great idea in general, but it keeps him happy, so once in a while, we go for it. So far the worst thing that's happened to the camera is a few fingerprints on the lens.

Today's photo safari was all about the dog, the TV, and the favourite stuffed toy. And me, but I'm not posting those ones. They are... less than flattering.




Still stuck on "A Christmas Story"- or "Boy with Glasses Movie", as it's known around these parts.


Not quite sure what he was trying to achieve here... something very artistic, I'm sure. ;)


Jack didn't care much about "pitcher time". He was more concerned with nap time.

Paying Attention In Church

"Thank You, God, for all the animals... but I think I can do better."
-Simon

(I blame my love for My Little Ponies for that one... Simon thinks that horses look much better with horns.)


My family's not so good at paying attention in church. That's fine, as long as they're quiet; I don't expect the kids to sit and listen to some guy talking. It works for AJ, too- he gets to "keep the boys occupied" when he'd totally rather be listening... yeah. This was entirely for Simon's benefit:





I love my boys. Weirdos.

Morning Person

How did we end up with a morning person in this family? I would have said it was impossible- AJ stays up late and sleeps in any time his work schedule allows it, my body clock is naturally set to "night owl"*, and Simon stays up late playing in his room every night (no matter how tired he is) and is then a major cranky-pants the next morning.

Ike, however, is a happy, happy little man in the morning. Fortunately for me, he's given up on the whole wide-awake-at-5-in-the-morning thing (whew!), and he now wakes up at a much more reasonable 7:00-ish. This morning he woke up singing "Mommy... Mommy... Moooooommyyyyy!", and when I opened the door he said, "A-MOWNIN', Mommy! Ike go couch, now?" After he got his diaper changed, he insisted on waking Simon up by taking him half a croissant and saying, "A-MOWNIN', Simey!" Simon just groaned and rolled over, but Ike seemed happy with that. He then proceeded to "A-MOWNIN'!" the dog, the cats, and the rats, and then he went to play with his trucks.

Almost makes it worth getting up before the sun. Almost. :)




*I've had to suppress this tendency for the last 5+ years, which has led to me needing to go to bed by 10 so that I can wake up with the kids and still feel like I need another 5 hours' sleep. Not quite a win-win, there.

Oh, the Frustration... and Welcome Back!

This is not the worst thing that could happen to me. It's quite frustrating, but I can deal with it. I seem to not have access to my old "C-Section Lobotomy"... apparently I (for some unknown reason), in a fit of ain't-I-dumb-ness, put it in another account which I can't seem to get into. So here we are... I guess we'll just pick up a year after we left off over there and carry on. I'm going to say that this is a good thing, even though there's a lot of stuff over there that I'm rather fond of; it's like my new planner that I'm so excited about at the beginning of each year, a blank slate, no mistakes made yet.

(FYI, the old blog is at http://c-sectionlobotomy.blogspot.com)

It's been just over a year since I last posted over at the other blog. Back then I was getting ready for Christmas; now I'm just finishing putting all of the Christmas decorations away for this (last) year. It was a good year... I should have been writing about it there instead of just in my paper journal (and even that didn't get much attention in the past year).

The highlight reel:

- Christmas was good, and we spent the week around New Year's in Newfoundland with friends and family. We're hoping to move back some time in the next year or two, which would be so nice- we miss our friends and AJ's family so much! Less nice was being stuck for 12 hours waiting for the ferry to dock so we could board and get home- winter is a chancy time for ferry travel. High winds make high waves. Never doing that again if we can avoid it!

-Ike had his second birthday in February, and he's been a textbook 2-year old: short temper, possessive, cranky when he's tired, constantly testing us and pushing our buttons... but also very fun, adorable and affectionate, and the good has more than outweighed that bad.

-We had an excellent summer that ended in two big events: we added a new member to our family (Jack, a mostly-white boxer puppy, the newest love of AJ's life) and a week-long trip to Ontario for my dear brother's wedding. It was VERY exciting to finally have my new sister-in-law officially become a part of our family- I've loved her like a sister for almost as long as I've known her.




















<-- Jack in August (14 weeks)




-Simon started "big kids" school in September, just a few days before his 5th birthday, and he's loving it. I was really surprised; I'd kind of expected him to be a shy kid like I was, but he's quite popular with the kids in his class, he likes playing with them, and he loves going to school. He misses it on holidays- Thanksgiving weekend was a sad time for poor Simon! He's learning to read and print, and he likes the work they're doing. He has an amazing teacher, too- I'm so happy about all of it!

-The car exploded in October. OK, it didn't explode, but a piston blew and went through the engine, and that was the end of that. We have a nice, used Santa Fe now (named Tina... Tina Fe) and we're paying way too much in interest because of our crappy credit history, but we'll get through it.

-November marked the second anniversary of us moving here. AJ is still enjoying his job most days... even the bad days are better than working in retail!

-November was also NaNoWriMo month, and I participated for the first time. I managed to write a little over 51,000 words without too much trouble, of which I have access to about 10,000 on the computer right now. The whole thing needed to be revised, anyway, so I'm starting over. You know, in all my free time.

-Christmas 2010 was great, if somewhat rushed. AJ's grandfather passed away a few days before Christmas, so on Christmas Day after presents we packed our bags, then flew from Halifax to St. John's on Boxing Day. Not a happy reason to have a family reunion, but it got us back to NL again when we hadn't expected to be back at all, and it was so good to see everyone. Only having a few hours to spend with friends was a big tease, of course, but it was better than nothing!


...which brings us back to here and now, where I'm watching Ike, who's almost 3 now, playing with his trucks and my belt (the belt is a bridge, or so I'm told), making oatmeal for a late breakfast, thinking that I should really go and do laundry now. Things have changed so much, but they're still so much the same.