Day 357

Day one of Christmas vacation. Luckily Wally brought home a big box to keep the kids busy for a few days. Today we cut out windows and a door, and decorated it a bit.

Day 351

Just a snap of the boys getting along and smiling. These are my favourite kinds of pics :)

Day 343

Ryan has been teaching Alex how to play some video games on the computer. Here is a rare moment of them actually getting along and enjoying each other instead of fighting.

Day 333

Tonight I got everything ready for the Elf's arrival. I also started a new blog chronicling the next 24 days with Elfie, which you can find here:
Project Elf 24

Day 330

Today Ryan had his party with some of his friends from school. His cousins were supposed to come too but they cancelled, which is ok because it was total craziness here with just 6 kids, I can't imagine if there were more!

The party them was "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" so I had a few food games organized for the kids. Here they are playing "Pin the meatball on the spaghetti"

and a "what food am I" headbands game

and of course, blowing out the candles on the cake!

Day 311

I'm going to be doing a cute little thing with the boys this Christmas that I heard about on the internet. It's called "Elf on a Shelf". Basically you buy a stuffed toy elf and tell the kids that Santa sent him here to keep an eye on them and report back to the North Pole every night on their behaviour. At night when the elf comes to life, after his trip back to the house, he can sometimes get bored and mischevious, so in the morning when the kids wake up and he freezes, he will sometimes be found doing silly things. I can't wait to do this. It will be great to tell the kids "Is this something the elf should be telling Santa about?" whenever they misbehave. I'm also already thinking up some funny things they can find him doing in the morning.

This is the elf I found at the store today, and the tag he had also had a little description on how he helps Santa. He's a little small though as it says he's basically an ornament. I'm going to keep looking for something that might be bigger or will be easier to position.

Day 306

When I let the dogs in this morning, I noticed that one of them had left this body print in the frost.

The boys spent the evening wrestling. I didn't mind this time because they were both actually having fun. Usually Ryan is too rough with Alex and I end up having to yell and seperate them.

Day 303

Halloween! My favourite holiday! Today I put the finishing touches on our costumes, we carved our pumpkins and I roasted the seeds, and then we ordered out pizza for supper.

Here we all are in our costumes ready to go out

Day 301

Today I brought the cupcakes to Ryan's school and the teachers said I could stay and help out if I wanted. I had a great time with the kids and even stayed for their surprise lunch (pizza!). Ryan also loved having me there. When I left after lunch I got a big hug and an I love you from him. Awwww!

Here he is doing one of the Pumpkin activities with his friends

Day 299

Wally and I volunteered to carpool for Ryan's school field trip. We brought Alex with us and had room for 3 more kids. It was a quick drive and the kids stayed occupied with a Spongbob Halloween DVD.

The place we went to was called McMaze. We went through a cornfield maze, took a horse wagon ride, and everyone got to pick a pumpkin as well. It was a beautiful, albeit windy day but all in all a great time.

Day 295

Today I finished off Ryan's Halloween costume. This year he wanted to be Waldo as he has all the books and he loves them. His costume was so easy. The jeans are his own, the sweater and cane came from the thrift store, the hat was 2 hats from the dollar store cut and sewn together, and the glasses and binoculars were from the dollar store as well. Put them all together and he make a pretty adorable Waldo :)

Day 271

Today I did one of my favourite things of the year...decorate for Halloween! We live in the middle of nowhere so we never get any kids, but now that I have my own kids, it's an excuse to go all out.

Here is the porch

The decorations on the side of the house. Can you believe I picked the ghosts, the witch's cauldron, and the orange pumpkin and cat in the previous picture out of peoples trash a few years ago? There was nothing wrong with them! The biggest ghost even lights up!

Vlad, the impaled. I made him out of a dollar store mask, some $ store eyeballs, $ store gloves, $ store cape, a styrofoam wig head, 2 pieces of wood, plastic bags for stuffing, some wire, and some old material.

An unsuspecting victim. I added surplus eyeballs to the skull. It makes him look creepier.

This sign pretty much sums up our place :P

When Ryan got home from school, we pretended he was trying not to be Vlad's next victim

Day 268

Today Ryan's friend, Audrey came over for a play date. Alex of course had to tag along and do everything they did. In this picture they are fishing off of the tree. As you can see, Ryan has barely taken his George costume off.

Day 267

The boys have been watching George of the Jungle a lot lately. They think it's the most hilarious thing when he hits the trees. They keep jumping off the couch and splatting themselves into the wall while doing a jungle call.

Ryan asked to be George of the Jungle for Halloween, but I told him it would be a little cold to be running around at night in just a loin cloth. I went to Value Village and spotted a velvety jaguar patterned curtain for $5.99. It was perfect. I managed to make them each a George costume, and now they are both running around the house pretending to swing from vines.

Day 260

Tonight we put out a play tube for the kids. We were pretending it was a tunnel to Jupiter. Here is Julian in the tube.

I was an alien on Jupiter. The kids kept running away from me going "Ahhhh!" I can't understand why...

Day 246

Another cake made today for my friend and then we are on our way to her BBQ.

Here are the 2 cakes together at the BBQ. It was so crazy windy that even though the cow was secured on the board, it ended up blowing right off and knocking a "fence post" down. Gah! The effect was still there though and I heard a lot of chuckles as people cut into the crap :P

Alex and Dad enjoyed some soccer

And Alex cheated at beanbags

Ryan got crazy on the trampoline

And then the pig was carved, yum!

Day 217

It was such a gorgeous day today... sunny, cool, and a bit breezy. Perfect! I brought the kids to daycare so they could play with their friends, and I came home to open all the windows, and go nuts cleaning and fixing up things in the house.

This is the welcoming committee at the kids' daycare. They are always honking or hissing at me when I pull up.

"Look out, or I'll bite you in the butt!"

Once I was done cleaning, it was almost time to pick the boys up again. I decided to use the time by making the boys a huge mega train track up in Ryan's room with 2 tunnels that I made out of cereal boxes as a surprise for when they came home. It was so big, that I couldn't even fit the whole thing in the frame of the camera.

Day 212

If a kid is bored, just shove him in a sandbox with a hose. It's messy but effective.

Day 199

Wally and I took Ryan and his friend Audrey to Toy Story 3 today. Audrey had a play date with Ryan yesterday but since he had his little accident, and it got cancelled, we asked her to come along to make up for it. It's the first time Wally and I have been to the movies in 11 years! Is that crazy? On the way home we made a stop at McD's which made 2 little people very happy :)

Day 191

We took another 2 hour road trip today, but this time in the opposite direction, to the train museum in Delson, Qc. My boys are so cuckoo about trains, that they actually behaved and were good for three hours straight! this is unheard of people!