Easter Weekend 2010

We had a very nice, low-key Easter. NONE of our siblings managed to travel home for the long weekend so we really didn't do a lot of the "family thing". Which isn't always bad. Mom's still recovering from surgery so I think she was happy to skip the full turkey or ham dinner this year. And Cory's Dad was in a hockey tournament all weekend so they weren't really up to the dinner either.



So... we just played it quiet. In fact, we only left the house twice, once Friday morning to load up on weekly groceries, and Monday morning to drive to PG for brunch. The rest of the time was all family time with the kids.

Friday afternoon --- Mom and Dad drove out to help us colour eggs with the kids and decorate sugar cookies. Saturday we had a stay home day. Sunday we stayed home but I got a phone call at 7:30am from Mom who said they were already on the highway, heading out for breakfast! Monday we went to PG to have breakfast with the Freeman side of the family. They we did our usual errands in the city and came home early so that Cory could get some sleep before his midnight shift.

And now I'll shut up and share the photos. This first time Kirstin has coloured eggs. She was thrilled! She let Grandma do all the work, but she was pretty happy to watch and learn. She also learned that if you smack the egg on the table it makes a lovely criss-crossed patter on the shell...So serious...The survivors... I lost 4 in the boiling process.And the cookies... Yeah, believe it or not, he does think this is a good camera smile!

What the Easter Bunny left behind. Followed by "Hey, how'd a bunny get in the house? And how'd he carry all that? And how did he put the baskets on the couch?"... how much longer is the magic going to last with my little thinker? :)

Hee hee... poor Connor! Alex wouldn't let him fully wake-up before showing him what the Easter Bunny left him.

Our yummy Easter feast.Where we DO NOT blow bubbles....
And the APPROPRIATE place to blow bubbles!

Our annual egg hunt... the Easter Bunny hid them outside this year because there wasn't a food of snow or a giant swamp in the yard. Yay for early springs!

She got so excited about finding each egg, that she really didn't look too hard for any more.My most efficient little egg-hunter. Hey, leave some for the other kids to find...

And then, of course, it's not always the kids who want to "play"...Mom and I "played" while Grandpa was outside with the children. This is "Bargello" and probably the most challenging scrapbook technique I've ever attempted. It took us a couple of hours just to do these backgrounds. I'd say a definitive "never again" except that the pages turned out amazing... so I might not swear off it completely.Drawing in the cool colouring book the Easter Bunny gave him!
Cloud-watching after a full day (umm... or perhaps recovering from a chocolate coma)

Easter Monday... headed to PG to have brunch with Cory's parents. I dressed Kirstin up and couldn't resist posing her for a photo. Couldn't get her to smile, but I tried!

Cory with his Grandma. She's 92! (and I can tell you this without making her mad because she doesn't own a computer...) She had a pacemaker installed in January and has a new lease on life. She said "I feel like an eighty-year old again!" LOL

Snuggling with my boys. Sometimes it's important not too always be the one behind the camera... even though my other half doesn't take pictures from flattering angles. Ugh!

We swung by the hairdressers on the way home from PG. Connor's very proud of his new haircut. I hate seeing the sheepdog look go, because it makes him look like such a big boy... but now he can see again! :)

It was a very quiet, low-key Easter weekend. I hope yours were just as nice! :)

I love my son!

I love my son! I love the way his mind works. I love his childish innocence, but the spark of intelligence that lurks behind every conversation we have. I love his questions, even though I find them so hard to answer. His thirst to understand the world in his own way. What can I say, I’m madly in love with everything that makes him the neat kid that he is.

Last night I tried explaining cancer to my 5-year-old.

He asked me “Why do you keep going to visit Grandma, but we have to stay with Daddy’s parents? I want to visit Grandma too.”

I told him, “Grandma is in the hospital right now. And you have runny noses and coughs. I can’t take you to see her because she might catch your cold and she needs to stay healthy so her body can get better. But, you could probably come with me on Saturday. I think your cold will be gone by then.”

Then he asked me why she was in the hospital so I told him that she had to have an operation. He asked me why. So I told him it was because she had cancer.

“What is cancer?”

“Well, cancer is a disease that makes people really sick. Grandma’s cancer is something that is growing in her stomach that the doctor had to take out to help her get better.”

Then my son, my beautiful little soul, said, “Like when I was growing in your stomach and the doctor cut you open to take me out?”

I smiled at him and said, “no, not like that. Cancer is a bad thing that has to come out to keep her healthy. You were a good thing that I wanted in my stomach.”

I watch my son’s face, seeing the wheels turning in his brain, as he comes to his own conclusions.

“Oh!” he says. “Cancer is the opposite of children!”

Close enough!

Is this normal?

Okay, just got back from grocery shopping. I need 10 mushrooms for a recipe. I assigned that task to my 5-year old. Easy, right? Alex, here's a bag, please put 10 mushrooms in it. I get home and find that there are only 8 mushrooms in the bag. One is gigantic and 7 are normal size. Here's our dialogue:

Me - "Hey, Alex, you forgot two mushrooms!"

Alex - "No I didn't, you said 10"

Me - "But this is 8 mushrooms"

Alex - "I know."

Now I'm intrigued as to where we're going with this...

Alex - "I counted on you cutting the big one in 3"

... and my jaw dropped! Can't argue with that logic!

Sing a long time...

Well, I've been trying to post these for the past three nights. One I really want to post is about 2 minutes long and apparently WAY too big for Blogger... so I have to be satisfied with these shorter, slightly less adorable ones.

If you want to see the one that didn't make the cut, it's a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I did manage to put it up on Facebook.

Anyway, more fun with toddlers! :)

Peanut Butter and Pigtails...

And no, they're not actually related this time! :) Just a little Mommy brag!

Two firsts for us...

Connor made his peanut butter and jam sandwich (he'd live off them if I let him) all by himself. Love how he cut it "evenly" into four pieces.

And for the first time ever, I put Kirstin's hair up into pigtails.

It was ever so cute! :)

How to wear your kids out before bed...

... or "Faster, Faster, Faster..."

All you need for this trick is one squeaky computer chair...

I'm not sure why this entertains them so much, but it does! :)

My Valentine...

In honour of Valentine's Day, I've compiled a photo tribute to my Valentine for the past 16 Valentine's Days. Oh my, did I actually say that right? 16 Valentine's Days with the same guy? Surely I'm too young for that kind of stat? :)

Anyway, a couple of my facebook friends posted photos of them with their "Valentines" in their facebook statuses (statusii?) and urged me to do the same... okay, they probably weren't specifically meaning me... but I like to think so. It got me thinking about the kinds of photos that Cory and I have of each other. And it turns out, there really aren't that many. I've been so focussed on my children for the past 5.5 years, that I've neglected to immortalize on film, the person that's been in my life for half of it, and who's going to be around long after the children move out and find their own partners.

So, my Valentine's Day Resolution is to take more photos of my partner, and to immortalize the good, the bad, and the ugly in our relationship! Happy Valentine's Day, Cory! This is for you... (told you I was being cheap this year...)

Very early in our dating relationship...

We started seeing one another at the end of Grade 11, May 25th, 1993. This is us a few months later, age 17. Probably in the fall of '93, I think. Wow... I was young! Love it... maybe I'll use that for my facebook photo, hehehe


Here we are in the living room at my house getting the obligatory photo before we head off to the Spring Prom, 1994. The girl on the left is my best friend, Alison. She likes to take credit for setting us up... and used to insist I name our firstborn after her. I didn't think Alex would appreciate being called Alison, so I never kept that promise... :)

Our Grade 12 High School Graduation. Class of '94 (okay, maybe I am getting old). My Mom made my dress! Pretty talented, huh? So, this would be approximately one year into our relationship.

Dancing at my parents' 25th Wedding Anniversary Party, January 1996. Note the "oh-so-stylish" Star Wars Tie. I evidently overlooked his terminal geekiness, mistakenly thinking he'd outgrow it by his thirties... we still have the tie, by the way, it's in his drawer beside the Bugs Bunny one...

Skip ahead a year to our engagement photo. Cory proposed to me on April 12th, 1997. We were 20 years old at the time.

The night before our wedding, at our Rehearsal Dinner

July 11th, 1998 - a day that will live in infamy... ;)

This is one of my favourite wedding photos. I just think it's pretty cool!

And from our 7 week honeymoon in Europe. We both turned 22 in Europe so we decided we'd spending our birthdays doing something special. On Cory's birthday we went to Shakespeare's hometown, Stratford-upon Avon, and watched a Shakespeare Play, ate at Othello's Pub, and toured Ann Hathaway's Cottage. On my birthday... we went to EURODISNEY!!!!

Zurich, Switzerland - the summer of '98

My cousin's wedding, May 1999

My University convocation, also May 1999.

At Alison's wedding, August 1999. We've been married for one year now, so no longer newlyweds, but an old married couple! Note the ageing process in action... ;)

Okay, this is the best photo of us from 2000. Ugh! I'm sure it's the camera angle that makes it so unflattering...

2001 - the day before my 25th birthday. Cory's been 25 for 11 days, so I guess that officially makes him a cradle robber?

Our family photo, Christmas 2001. We have 4 fur-babies at this time. Percy, Shelley, Dinah, and Willow. Life is almost complete... nothing missing...

July 2002, at Shauna's wedding (yup, I'm a bridesmaid, how can you tell?) Shauna, if you're reading this blog, I miss you! Phone me sometime! :)

October 2002 - this time my title is Matron of Honour (matron? Eech!) at Jenn's wedding. Jenn, same thing... if you're reading this... phone me! ;)

(okay, I know, phone's work both ways... I'll make the effort...)

Halloween 2002 -- not sure what we were thinking!

May 2003, during our family photo shoot at my baby brother's first University convocation (he's had two more since then, the big ol' geek... come to think of it, my older brother has two degrees as well... that means I'm the loser when it comes to educational acheivements - however I've been busy making grandbabies so that scores me big points!)

Eric, same thing, phone me sometime! :)

Which brings us to Christmas, 2003. You can't really tell, but I'm about 10 weeks pregnant here! Woohoo! The reason you can't tell is because I've just spent the last 6 weeks vomiting my guts out, so I'm looking rather sleek. Wouldn't recommend that particular diet if your goal is soley to trim down...

... cause eventually you start to gain weight. This is us at our 10-year High School Reunion, and me at 32 weeks pregnant, and feelin' fine!

That's Alison and Shane - this is May, 2004. We've been married for almost 6 years, they are going on 5.

We go from being a couple, to being a family. Here's our pride and joy, Alexander James - July 2004. I think he's one-day old, based on the fact that I'm out of bed and IV free, but it's our earliest family photo.

Early parenthood, fall of 2004. And this is where I start to focus on the kids and not on us.

Christmas 2004.

New Year's Day, 2007 - we add on to our family and are now a party of 4.

June 2004 - Mom's birthday and one of our few family photos of just 4 of us.

Cousin Tyler's wedding, June 2004 - the other photo of the four of us.

Enter Kirstin, Mother's Day, 2008. We become a family of five.

Our family, October 2008 -

a decade of marriage and what do we have to show for it?Our family, October 2009... we have 16 years of history together and three amazing children.

Happy Valentine's Day, Cory. I love you!