TRuE LOvE

I will have the others to you soon....what a beautiful day that was! :)

Ang

I had no idea you were pregnant Ang, I'm so sorry to hear your bad news. And it seems like you're always waiting for things, and that's tough. Getting a downpayment is fantastic news, though. We had a big downpayment for this place, and it sure makes the monthly payments nicer. Are you allowed to use the downpayment for a house over here? Just in case you had forgotten, we would love to have you come here.

Happy Valentines from BC

WOW! You guys look like you are doing great!!! I am so happy for you.
I absolutely love checking out all of your photos on here...keep posting :) I still have those photos that I took of you and the kids at the park last sept. I will have to get them posted or sent to you.

Pre school already! holy! And they have grown so much. Angelina is so beautiful! She is going to be a handful when she gets older :) And Roman looks sooo much like Matt!!!

I am so glad you are settled in there nice and look like you are having a blast.

Not much is new here....hahah like usual... we are still in our holding pattern for our life to get rolling. Bryce is doing great at work and really likes it. He keeps getting promoted and having more work dumped on him which is pushing him more into management than programming (where he wants to be) but all is good. We are still waiting to hear back from project build in Winfield...the central okanagan foundation has chosen us as one of the successful applicants to have a down payment for a house donated to us...but we are in the holding process it seems, waiting for our mortgage approval. I have passed my major interview with the RCMP for 911 in Kelowna but I am also in a holding process for that as they are not hiring until after the Olympics... so ya! waiting waiting :) Things are mostly going great for us! I have been having some medical problems (Sleeping excessively and no motivation) since september and finally got a diagnosis this last week...so have been trying to get back on track now. I had a mis carriage in July and it all caught up with me in sept so the internist has finally diagnosed me with Post partum depression and they are trying to get me regulated with anti depressants for a month...I was very nervous about starting them and have had some issues so am now looking for another option... Other than that... Life is reasonably good!

Well hope to see more updates and photos of you guys! Take care!
Happy Valentines Day!

Baby Bear Gets an Education

Angelina goes to preschool now. Can you believe it? I can't.

Of course, she doesn't learn anything there. She's there for two hours and at the end the teacher tells us, "today, the kids learned about the letter m and coloured a picture of mittens." So it's just for fun. They switch activities litterally every 5-10 minutes though, and she doesn't enjoy that. I have to explain to her all the time that at preschool, we do just what we're told and do the very same thing as everyone else. It's the exact opposite of what I teach her in life, so I struggle with that a bit. The fact is that she already knows how to read and prefers to concentrate on one activity for a long time.Those are special and admirable qualities, not things to be trained out of her.


Our friend is pregnant and so Angelina loves to talk about how a baby is made. It's hillarious, she acts out the cell division and does little sound effects and stuff. We were in that section of the science center last week and wound up accidentally watching a video of a live birth- I didn't realize that the movie would show that. Anyway there we were watching a birth, and I was getting all squeamish and wondering if it's okay for Angelina to see this. But she was totally fine. She said, matter-of-factly, "look, the doctor is wearing gloves so she won't get covered in that messy purple stuff".

What an amazing kid.

My Little Scientists

We've been going to the Science Center in Toronto once or twice a week. It's the kids' favourite place in the world.

Angelina loves the human body stuff. She already knows all about anatomy and loves the models of skeletons and guts and stuff.

The second after this picture, Roman falls flat on his face. It's okay, he does it all the time.

This kid loves the stage!

And this one loves making noise. Maybe they will start a band together one day.

Christmas Fun

We spent Christmas eve with our friends

Roman slept through most of the Christmas party. The poor kid slept through most of his own birthday party too; that's what happens when you're a baby.

Every visit to the Glovers' house turns into a dance party



Christmas morning at home




Roman's taking his new chair for a test drive.

Hammy for Sammi

Here are a few pre-Christmas pictures, starting with Roman Hamming it up, especially for Sammi.

As promised

Matt got a Star Wars shirt for his birthday; now they have the same haircut and clothing.

Angelina loved this super wild ride in the back yard.

My little Christmas monkeys

Angelina sat with Santa for the first time, and had a great time

Done for this semester

Thank you Keira for the updates and all the pictures.

I love the Roman pictures where he is hamming it up; I can't believe he is two years old already. Before I know it, you will be posting first day of school pictures on the blog, and I will be hitting my head against the wall wondering where the time has gone.

I loved Angelina in her princess costume; she is a very beautiful young lady. You and Matt looked great in your costumes as well. It looks like there is so much more to do with the family in Oshawa which is great since Angelina and Roman are information sponges. The Viking group was very cool for the kids to see and ask questions...something different.

Do you have the house decorated for Christmas? What are your plans for the holidays? How is the winter weather so far?

Enjoy your holidays! I love looking at the pictures of the family.

Sammi

Spending a Little More Time Inside, These Days

The Last Baby Birthday

My bunny rabbit is two! I know a lot of people get sad as their babies grow out of babihood, but I am psyched. It's awesome that the kids are growing up. The older they get, the more we can talk to each other and do cool stuff and have fun.

Now that he can talk, I'm glad Roman can tell me what he wants, even though it is often pink cake. He can say a lot now, but the most frequent words out of his mouth are still "bump head" "hurt mouth" "hurt hand" "bump butt" and so on... he's a little clumsy. Another gem is "make toots!"

So my baby isn't really a baby anymore, but he's still the most squishable, sweet, funny little guy I know.

He likes his new ball pit. He yells "balls everywhere!" and goes ape shit.

Even though this was the easiest birthday cake I ever made, it was also the most appreciated.

He gets by with a little help from his friends, like Steve Harper.

me

I thought I would add a pic of me... Just for you

Party like it's 999

Angelina has a page about vikings in her favourite book (a history book) and this weekend we went to see a Viking re-inactment group. They had an authentic camp set up with a smithy and a cooking fire and stuff. Angelina was so happy!

This giant was Gina's best friend for the day. He kept showing her viking tools and weapons and stuff. He said "What do you think of that?" and Angelina said "I think that's pretty cool!"

She was a good sport about dressing up briefly but would not let me take a good picture.

The vikings showed Angelina all kinds of tools.


Here is Roman sparring with a viking. Perhaps he'll be a viking some day. They called him "bloody Roman" though, so he would probably choose a new name.


Angelina said the battles were her favourite part. Roman tried to join in, of course.

Roman Stories

Roman is spelling and reading a bit now, but he's as obsessed as ever with his beloved letters. But now his relationships are becoming more complicated I guess. The other day he was playing with an "M" toy and decided to bring it into the bathtub with him. He was playing, splashing, washing and talking to M in the bath happily as I left the room. Then a couple minutes later I heard him starting to holler and get angry. I came back and Roman thrust the M towards me, yelling, "Don't want that M! Don't want that Mmmmmmm!"

Here he is eatina raw onion becuase it looks like an O. If I can't get Roman to eat, I just make his food into a letter and he'll eat it.

This morning we were at the grocery store and I was looking through the spices trying to find Coriander (no luck). I looked down and Roman was trying to chew his way into a bottle of Mrs Dash. He's almost two, but he still eats everything! Even if it tastes awful and makes him cry, like soap or pepper, he's likely to do it again. Seems like a dumb thing for a genious kid. Anyway, I took the spice away from Roman and kept shopping, but Roman started crying and yelling "Doesn't taste good! Doesn't taste good!" And next thing I knew he was barfing his little guts out, barfing out bits of plastic from the spice bottle and green beans from the produce aisle. I was frantically catching the barf with my hands and then the grocery list and then his sweater. After that he was happy as can be, running around finding letters and numbers. The whole thing actually made me feel really grateful, becuase I realized that it's been awhile since he has barfed in the store and I am very happy about that.

Fall is Fun

The kids made a new little friend on our walk

I've never been afraid of snakes, but when my kids started poking and playing with one, I did feel a little nervous

Yay, remember playing in the leaves when you were a kid?

I bet you didn't eat them though, like my Roman. This guy eats everything!

Trying on the new snowsuits! They don't actually need to wear them yet, it's amazingly warm here still. Sometimes we don't even wear jackets.

Halloween!

People have been asking for my halloween pictures for weeks, and now that Halloween has actually happened, I have them! Here they are:

This is what happens when you take a little girl for a walk...

... she wants to wear her princess costume and pick up some "accessories" along the way.

Camping

These are a little old now. But I took so many pictures in the summer, I couldn't keep up. The last one is probably my favourite picture of Roman. He always gets so excited.