Fourth birthday and Christmas

The last few weeks have flown by like they usually do in December. Owen turned four years old a week before Christmas and so we had a couple of parties for him. The first was with a few of his friends here at the house. They all went skating at the next door neighbours' skating rink and then ran around the house constantly until it was time for everyone to go home. We managed to fit in some birthday cake somewhere in there. We had our families here for a party the next day and Owen had a blast.

Christmas was a blur but i managed to take a few photos that turned out. Enjoy!

Student of the month!!!

Owen was recently named Student of the Month for his entire JK/SK class! He received the award for being an honest and helpful student. Scott and I were able to go to the assembly when he was to receive the award and i managed to get a few pictures. He was so brave! When his name was called he went all the up to the front of the assembly (with over 300 kids sitting there) and shook the principal's hand and posed for a picture. He was so proud of himself afterwards - it was the proudest moment of our parenting lives yet!

Annual trip to "The Mountain"

We spent a couple of days at Blue Mountain again this year with our families. We arrived to almost no snow at all and by the time we left there was well over a foot of the white stuff! The ski hills weren't quite open yet so we didn't get a chance to let Owen ski for the first time. We still had great time swimming outside in a snow storm, climbing snow piles, having snowball fights, eating lots of fudge, hot chocolate and yummy pizza. What a great couple of days!

Halloweeen

Owen

Our eldest son has completely turned into a different little boy over the last few weeks. Kindergarten has turned him into a confident, outgoing little maniac. He has done so many things that we never thought he would do until he was maybe 10 years old...! A few weeks ago we went to AppleFest here in town and when we arrived we asked Owen if he wanted to ride on a pony. He said no and we both just thought he was too scared to do that but when we jokingly asked him if he wanted to ride on the elephant, he said "sure".

When he arrives at Kindergarten in the morning, he now eagerly goes into the fenced-in area to play with his friends and hardly notices us as we leave.

He runs away from us in public places now too. I absolutely hate this and I have had to become "that mother" in the grocery store when I have to sit him down and yell at him for scaring me

when I can't find him.

A lot to be thankful for...

Lately, in photos and a few words...

We went for a long hike on Sunday:

Owen has never been a kid that likes to draw or colour. Up until yesterday, we had never seen a legible drawing from him at all. Yesterday he showed us this picture and Scott and I blamed eachother for trying to pass off our own drawing as his to trick eachother. It turns out Owen is now all of a sudden able to draw things like smiley faces! He's been doing a lot of printing and drawing at kindergarten lately and it's obviously starting to sink in!

We also went pumpkin searching and apple picking on the weekend:

I love this picture of the boys:And here is a picture that sums up our lives with these two crazy kids these days. They are soooo loud and soooo wild all of the time they're together. We don't even bother cleaning this glass door anymore because it's frequently used for slobber episodes like this:

Change

There's been a lot of change around here lately. We're all hanging in there, but it's a struggle some days. Most days are good and it's like we've been in this new routine forever.

Benjamin is now in daycare full-time, Owen is now in the 3.8 room at daycare (big kid room), I'm back to work, and Owen's about to start JK twice a week. Benjamin is doing great at daycare. Drop off is still full of tears, but after a few minutes he's fine and the rest of the day is good. He's eating well, walking well (and almost running!), playing with all the kids easily, and sleeping VERY well. He's our little trooper.

Owen's doing fine so far, although we've had a few bumps. He's such an emotional and sensitive kid, so when he thought that Benjamin wasn't having a good time at daycare, he would cry himself and be stressed all day. We have assured him that Benjamin's doing great, so now that we've said that, Owen's doing very well. He had his first visit with his kindergarten teacher this morning. We packed his Spiderman backpack with all the things his teacher asked him to bring for the visit: change of clothes, blanket and a picture drawn by Owen about his summer. He went right with the teacher to have a tour of the JK room and even spoke to her when she asked him questions (usually he'd be too shy). On Monday he starts his full day schedule of JK so hopefully he'll do fine. Here he is on his first visit to kindergarten. I just can't believe i'm posting a picture of Owen on his first day....!

Lately, in photos

Canada Day long weekend

My boys. Oh, how I love these kids.

Cottaging, swimming, camping and more!

We've been busy lately! Scott is able to take Fridays and sometimes Mondays off of work during the summer so we're trying to accomplish a lot this summer with the boys.

Last night Owen and Scott camped in our new tent by themselves. Owen absolutely loved it! He kept telling Scott that he 'had an idea, daddy', and was full of questions about camping. They went to bed late and Owen was up extra early so he's already fast asleep now as i write this and it's not even lunch time.

We try to go swimming as often as possible at our next door neighbour's house. Here's Benjamin enjoying his first-ever swim. By Benjamin's age, Owen had been thru two classes of swimming lessons..... I guess Benjamin's the typical second child!We were up at a friend's cottage this past weekend and Benjamin enjoyed playing in the sand. He didn't eat it, which was very surprising to us. He sat there for hours just spraying sand all over himself.

And we traveled to Oakville for a fun playdate with Owen's friends Emma and Abi last week. I remember when these two were babies sitting beside eachother on our couch! Stop growing Owen and Emma!!

Gone fishin'

We spent most of the weekend at the cottage this past weekend. Owen did lots of fishing (and caught two!) and even jumped into the water at one point. We are looking forward to much more time there this summer!

Brothers

Soccer

Owen had his first-ever soccer 'game' tonight. Scott and I both said it was the cutest thing we have ever witnessed! We weren't sure how he'd handle the new situation and surroundings but as soon as he put his new uniform on, he was gone! He started kicking any soccer ball he could find and ran for a good 10 minutes straight before the coaches called the kids in. He listened and did what he was told the entire time and you could tell he was just soaking it all in. Every five minutes the coaches would call a time out from the drills and tell the kids it was a water break and so the kids would run to their parents, have a drink, and then Owen would say 'it's time to go' and head out (running, of course) back onto the field.

Cuteness

Happy birthday, Benjamin!

We held his family birthday party here on Sunday. I'd love to write more about the fun day we had but the birthday boy is not letting me right now! Got to go!