Happy Birthday Sophia!

Ok, so her birthday was LAST Sunday... but my baby is THREE. What happened!? In a blink, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, she's a little girl!! Here are a few photos from her actual day, and one from the camp fire the night before :) we got her some clothes, DORA THE EXPLORER of course! Her absolute favourite! Good thing it was chilly at the trailer, as she wanted to wear it right away!

September - in a nutshell

A very big nutshell that is! LOL! I have pics to share, and stuff to share.

We are all back to school!


First morning on the bus

Julie-Anna is now in grade 2. She's got a man for a teacher this year, and it's turning out to be great! She's in a grade 2/3 split, which felt like such a jump from a grade one only class. She's thrilled to be in class with Presley and Keeley, Caleb and Duncan from her class last year. She's also made a new friend in Dessa, who was in the other grade 1 class last year. She is doing exceptionally well in math (takes after her Dad!), and not so well in spelling this year (hmmm, what happened this summer?!)

Zachary started Junior Kindergarten this year! WOW, what happened to my baby boy!? He was adamant right up until we left to go that "I am NOT going to Kindergarten!!!" I changed my tactics at the last min, and said "are you excited to go to kindergarten?!" He replied enthusiastically "I AM EXCITING TO GO TO KINDERGARTEN!!" We were a bit late, got in just after the bell rang. He went in, hung up his Batman backpack, and joined the circle. His new friend Spencer welcomed him, and he didn't even say good bye! THAT was hard on Mommy!! but he did FABULOUS! The rest of the week (staggered entry, he went on Tuesday, but not W-F) he woke up asking "Is is Monday today?!" I guess he loves school! :D



Sophia started at the Pre-School that Tuesday as well. She was DYING to go to school. You just say 'school' and she says "I'm in Mrs. Foley's class!!" Enthusiasm that just doesn't fade :)

We took one last trip to the trailer in Buckhorn. The last hurrah of summer if you will. We took a quick morning trip into Bob Caygeon. Michael really wanted to go there, because he loves the Tragically Hip song! LOL! We were there for Sophia's 3rd birthday as well. In the afternoon, we found a great park and zoo, and bonus it was FREE!!! The Riverview Park and Zoo is amazing! It has this SUPER GIANT SLIDE that the kids just loved, lots of animals - otters, camels, bobcats, monkeys, cougars, bats, meer cats, you name it, they have it! It will definitely be a day trip next summer. They have a great splash pad there too, but sadly it was too cold for us to play in it.









That photo was just too good to let go! LOL Zachary consistently slid off the air mattress every night before Mike and I headed to bed! LOL

More to come tomorrow... I'm tired. It was a great day today at the Stampin' Up! Regionals in Hamilton... I have cards to share, and stuff to show!!

She's a pack rat!

...and she learned that trait from ME!! I just spent 90 minutes decluttering Julie-Anna's craft cart (aka CATCH ALL!). Holy smokes... there was all manner of stuff in there. I have a shopping bag of garbage (broken jewelry, empty wrappers for things, bits of this and that!), and a fair sized box full of paper recycling! In the box of papers were bits of cut up paper (ok, LOTS of cut up paper!), lots of scribbled on papers, construction papers, and a tonne of old school work. Now, I did save a couple of the school work things for her scrapbook - a few perfect scores on math papers, the 'grade one code' from her teacher from last September, and a spelling test. :) In the craft cart I found dried out markers, many pencils, crayons and other crafty stuff willy nilly all over the place. It's all condensed, and everything has it's own drawer. All crayons are accounted for, well, they are all together at least! Now to put the artsty stuff to good use!

I was prompted to declutter this as it was A) making me crazy to look at daily, and B) we went out and bought school supplies today!! We had a good trip out for school stuff. JA scored a great deal on a backpack - it's light blue, navy and a bit of black. It was 10$ and included the back pack, and a matching pencil case and insulated lunch bag! She chose that over a Tinkerbell backpack and a Princesses lunch bag. So we need to jazz it up, any suggestions? We also purchased some new markers for JA and some fatter markers for Sophia and Zachary, some pencil crayons, and that's it for school. While in Zehrs we also scored some Crayola chalk buckets (got 4 of them!) and a big bottle of bubbles, all at 50% off! Zachary chose a Spiderman lunch bag, and he was happy as a clam to have it!

Today was Zachary's last day of bowling. They had a cute little party with hotdogs, chips, timbits, and pop! All the kids got a trophy :) He was totally thrilled to get it! He went out with a 'bang' and a score of 102 :D The girls bowled too, Sophia did really well for her first real attempt!! Good practice, as she starts this league in a few weeks too!



Well, I should tidy up my mess from the big declutter... tomorrow is a long day, with helping my mom ready her house for showing on Friday afternoon.

Cool bugs!

We saw this cool bug on our Sunflower leaf the other day. I got this cool up close photo of it, but haven't a CLUE what this bug is! I have never seen a bug that is PINK before! :D

So, can you identify this bug for us??

Edited to add: Apparently it's a leaf hopper! It is attracted to sap. While we were at the trailer, someone or something snapped the head off one of our budding sunflowers (that the kids planted, how annoying and sad for them!). The result is a lot of sap... which brought on the ants you see at the bottom of the photo, and according to Wikipedia the leaf hoppers also enjoy some good sap!!

Soccer Banquet Day

Every year, when the soccer season is over, the Port Weller Soccer League has their banquet day. This year it poured rain. I could literally ring out the water from my shirt. I had just gotten my hair cut and styled, and that was basically a write off! LOL! It was raining sideways almost, and so while I had an umbrella during the little 15 minute game, we all got wet. Then we tried to go to the air bouncers but they deflated them in the rain. At noon, JA got her trophey along with her team. We zipped over for our hot dogs (free dogs, Kool Aid Jammers, cotton candy, sno cones) and half way thru the line it began to POUR rain. We were soaked. Our hot dogs got soggy by the last bite too!! LOL It did stop raining eventually, and they re-opened most of the bouncers, and the slides. The kids had a blast. I checked out the penny sale table (which was also getting wet!) and put my tickets in for numerous things including a couple different portable DVD players, a cool Spiderman CD player for Zachary for Christmas, some Barbie stuff, a Webkinz, school stuff and gift certificates for stuff. I hope to hear next week that I won something!! Last year I won a new mouse for the computer, and some Clickits for JA. Kala and Kyle joined us, as did Kevin and Lubie. After that, we zipped to the Pool Park for one last hurrah before the end of season closure. It rained. LOL It POURED... the kids were in and out and in and out of the pool if the life guards could not see the elusive black dot on the bottom of the pool! LOL! It was still fun.




We went and spent some time at Happy Rolph's yesterday afternoon. The kids had fun playing on the playground, feeding the ducks, and the other animals. At least they tried...some animals were just too far away or simply not interested in eating. The goats tho... ALWAYS interested! LOL!

What a week, part two!

So on our way home from the trailer, I decide to do a 'drive by' at my mom's to see if she's up so I can call to say we are home. Not only are the lights on, but she's got company at 10pm!! Michael was kind enuf to remind me that my brother and his kids are down! LOL! So I backed up and went in for a few minutes. The end result... Kala (10) and Kyle (9) coming to sleep over. I wasn't sure what a great idea that was after JA having been up late for 10 days in a row!! However, come they did. Zachary was SO excited to have Kyle sleep in his bed!! Kala and JA shared the top bunk, and Sophia slept alone as usual.

So the kids went to Waterworks Park VBS at Laryssa's church (Laryssa being one of JA's favourite friends!) in Port Dalhousie. They had a FABULOUS time... so much so that Kala and Kyle convinced their dad to stay for the week! So Sun they all slept here, Monday they all slept here. Tues the boys slept at Nanny's, the girls did nails and slept here. Wed the girls slept at Nanny's, and the boys here. Thursday Kala and Kyle slept at their other Nan's with their Mom and their two little sisters. Friday was the last day for VBS, and so Mom and I and Sophia went to the closing ceremonies to see them sing and get their certificates etc. We spent the week back and forth eating at Mom's, eating here... it was crazy!! Friday night the boys slept at Nanny's, and Saturday was the end of Soccer Banquet Day. More on that tomorrow when I have the photos uplooaded.

This week along with VBS, we spent some time at the Pool Park, and swimming in our pool in the front yard.



The girls got a hold of the digital camera, and took this awesome photo of our big sunflower!


So it's Sunday night and the Kids and their Dad (my brother!) are still here. Thankfully, I have only my own children sleeping in my house tonight! :D Early to bed (well, earlier than the last two weeks have been!)... and we are going to TRY to resume some semblance of a schedule before school starts in a week.

I'll update on the Port Weller Soccer League banquet day (a wet wet day!) tomorrow... it's late, time for bed!!

Wow, what a week!!

Well, I had half this blog post written, and accidentally closed the window. UGH. So while I'm waiting for my pics to load up, I'll start again! LOL!

So JA went to the trailer for a week with my MIL and the other two grandkids. They had a blast! I was teary when she left, but ended up having a great time with just Zachary and Sophia. We spent 10-11 hours at the Arthur Street Wading Pool!! It was great! Michael took Zachary to Marineland for a morning (he was on afternoon shift), and they had a fun time just the two of them.

So on the following Friday, Mike and I packed up Zachary, Sophia and our gear and we headed to the trailer. We got delayed by a dog on the 401 highway! It wasn't a huge delay, only about 30 mins.

So we arrived at the trailer around 2:30, where we reunited with Julie-Anna (I didn't realize just how much I missed her until I had her in my arms again!). However, the reunion was short lived, as she wisked Zachary and Sophia off to the awaiting chipmunks! It's the 'thing to do' at the trailer, feeding the chipmunks. Sophia was fearless from the start (and so are the chipmunks!), and Zachary was right in there as well. It's so cute to see them feeding them!


We spent some time at the parks at the trailer resort (in Buckhorn). However, it
started to rain while we were there, so we zipped back to the trailer.




JA tried to teach Zachary and Sophia how to play checkers, too funny!



However, we were grateful for the rain, as there was a fire ban on in Peterborough. Too bad, as we really wanted to make S'mores at the fire! We compromised by having Daddy try roasting marshmallows on the bbq. They didn't turn out too well tho. So we ended up having 'fake' s'mores in the microwave!




We did get to the beach on Saturday. It was COLD though!

On Saturday evening the trailer resort was hosting "Hallowe'en" for the kids in the park. They had a contest at the office, which Sophia won for the 3 and under category. She got a blow up set of chairs and table. We had the kids costumes with us - Superman, Genevieve from the 12 Dancing Princesses, and a Blue Princess/Ballerina.
After the contest, the kids all went trick or treating around the resort. Man, they got a LOT of stuff!! Some of the people were handing out freezies and Kook Aid Jammers. I thought that was pretty awesome for August! But the candy, and chips, and snacks... each kid had about 3/4 of a shopping bag full! Insanity!

Sunday we spent tidying up, packing up, went for another quick 'dip' into the water, and playing at the park. :D

We had a relatively uneventful trip home, a little bit of traffic, but nothing to complain about!! We are planning and hoping to go back to the the trailer for Sophia's birthday weekend, just gotta make sure it works for the In Laws!! :D