Poor sleepy sick baby

Abby's got the flu this week, and apparently last night she wanted to go to bed before I got around to putting her there! :)

On the lighter side...

Finally - deck pictures!

We got our deck stairs installed last week and over the weekend we finished all the railings (well, we still want to put a 2x4 on top of all of them, but that may not be until spring).

Just some everyday pictures...

Not much going on here right now - although we did get our stairs for our deck installed, I'll have to take a picture of that! Here's just some pictures from the last few days:

Gavin & Abby in a fairly rare moment of not hurting each other while they're that close!

Abby climbing (as per usual) to try to get to the piano...she was actually on her way down since she saw me coming!

Not sure what this face means she's up to!

Daddy giving the munchkins a ride on his feet. Abby's gotten the idea pretty quickly and hangs on for dear life!

The following post has been rated '14A' for mature content

Ah, what could be sweeter than a child's drawing of his family? Happy smiling faces, the cute stick arms and legs...um, Gavin? What are those extra parts you've drawn?

OH!!

Great, an anatomically correct family picture. And believe it or not, if you turn the papers over, there's little circles on the back side for, well, you figure it out.

Clarks in the news!

Gavin's had his first taste of fame at the tender age of four! :) A couple of weeks ago on the day we went to his school to meet his teacher, a photographer was there taking several pictures of Gavin as he looked around his classroom. A couple of days later, a friend called to let us know that she had seen Gavin in the newspaper! (As a funny side story, I think I just assumed that the photographer was with the school and that they must take pictures of all the new students. I gave him Gavin's name and age, but on the way home, Greg asked who the man was taking pictures and suddenly I was embarrassed to say that I didn't know! I was kind of glad to hear that Gavin's picture was in the paper so I knew forsure who the man taking pictures of my son was!)

PLEASE excuse the awful grammar (and spelling, clearly the Grande Prairie Herald-Tribune can't afford luxuries like perhaps a spell checker??). Oh, and on a photographic note, I really think a newspaper photographer should either set the white balance correctly for the flourescent lights, or adjust it before printing - it's all lime green instead of white!

It was pretty neat to see Gavin in the paper, and we're definitely keeping the clipping for his scrapbook!

'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...'

Did you know that technically September 15 is still part of the season called summer?!?

Then Why. Is. It. SNOWING?!?

Our little piano player

Abby LOVES to play the piano - and as she's getting older, she's getting smarter and isn't content to stand on the floor and just stretch for the keys anymore! She wants to be either on my lap or preferably by herself on a chair so she can see the keys better and play her beautiful music. Unfortunately she's not all that steady on a chair yet, so I stand right beside her in case she suddenly decides to take a step into the open air beside the chair. Of course I generally tire of the performance before she does and ATTEMPT to remove her, but somehow she grabs onto the piano (how does she grip a flat surface so tightly??) and it is almost impossible to get her away from the piano!

I'll have to remind her of this when I'm nagging her to practice her piano lesson in a few years!

"I will make a list about it!"

Gavin has been very into making lists about everything this week - I'm thinking they might be making some sort of lists in his class at school and that's why he's into it. As soon as he gets home after school he gets a pad of Post-It notes and a pen and decides what he's going to make a list about. He picks which words he wants to write and I help him with the spelling.

Yesterday he told me a big long story about how some little kids don't know about God so he was going to make a list about God so if anyone didn't know they could look at his list. Here it is:


The jist of it is that he wanted to say that God is big, holds the world in His hand, made us and protects us. I am so thankful for a school that is reinforcing what we have taught Gavin at home. (I could do without the 20 or 30 sticky notes all over my walls, fridge, doors, floor, etc. though!)

A little facelift

I'm sure you've noticed a new look here today. ;) Clearly I have too much time on my hands.

Do you like it? Hate it? Does something look strange or not work on your computer? Please post a comment and let me know - I generally only check the site from our own computer, so it may look totally messed up to everyone else and I would never know, happily sitting here in my own little non-messed up world.

P.S. Yes, I know, there are only two little dotty things at the beginning of the quote in the header, and three at the end. It's driving me crazy. But the small munchkins are waking from their naps and shockingly, they're a priority (if just barely) over the symmetry of the blog header.

School days

Well, Gavin went off to his first day of school on Friday. He is attending a Junior Kindergarten speech and language program at St. Mary's Catholic School here in Beaverlodge. It is four mornings a week, and the Jr. K kids are in the same class with the Kindergarten kids (who attend two full days a week). For a few minutes each morning each child has their own time with the speech therapist and then the rest of the time they get to do fun kindergarten things!

Gavin was easy to leave at school (I think because of all the church things he's been involved in, he is definitely not one to cry and not want us to leave), which made it easier on mommy! Greg picked him up from his first day and it sounded like Gavin had a lot of fun, and he "didn't even have to sit in the time-out chair!" (One day down, 179 to go...) ;)

Here's Gavin on his way to his very first day of school!

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have...

...a hairstyle! Most of you know of Abby's crazy hair, and up until now I haven't even tried to do anything with it. But it's getting longer and she's getting older so I've been trying to figure out what (if anything, ha ha) I can do with her fuzzy hair. Tonight after her bath I brushed a few 'bangs' forward, and then clipped the rest of the sides back with pretty barrettes. Not bad! Hopefully as it keeps growing I can trim the bangs and it will actually start to look like hair instead of a mass of dandelion fluff orbiting her cute little head. ;)

Doooo...doo doo doo doo doo

(Um, that's the Phantom of the Opera theme, if you didn't recognize it)

Well, the day has almost come: a good friend and I are leaving tomorrow morning for a weekend in Edmonton. Without children. Wild and crazy, I know. When we heard back in March that Phantom of the Opera was coming to Edmonton, we bought two tickets before they could sell out, and have been counting the days ever since! ;)

We'll see Phantom on Friday evening, then spend Saturday looking through stores we never get to spend time in without kids hanging off of every limb, sleep through the night, maybe enjoy a leisurely dinner, go to the bathroom without someone barging in - you know, the stuff dreams are made of!

But yes, I'm sure we'll both cry when we actually leave our families tomorrow morning!

Somebody keep an eye on this one!

No, I did not put her up there. She climbed up. By herself.

And earlier today she dug her little toes into the baby gate at the top of the stairs and climbed half way up it so her waist was at least as high as the top of the gate.

Anyone care to place bets on when She Who Climbs will be able to get out of her crib??

Does this look award-winning to you?

I was taking pictures of the kids outside this afternoon and caught a priceless shot of Abby playing 'peek' around the swingset in the backyard. I immediately knew that this was the shot I was going to send in for the Today's Parent cover contest - the four finalists get a trip to Toronto and a professional photo shoot, with one of the finalists appearing on the cover of Today's Parent magazine. It's worth a shot, right?

SO true!

I found this on another blog site and couldn't resist posting it - it's just way too true! This really is about the only way a mother of small children is going to find some peace and quiet to have a coffee and read her Bible!

(And don't worry, it was originally posted as a joke, she doesn't actually bind and gag her children!)