Cottage fun, and eating pumpkin pie!

Wishing a happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Fall updates:
The weekend after the Labour Day weekend, Kurt's parents came to visit us at the cottage, along with my parents. There were some beautiful walks on the beach:




playing at the park:


...and some nice meals.

Last weekend we closed the cottage. We arrived in the evening, and because my parents had closed their cottage, we didn't have access to their shower, so here was our make-shift solution:



It was a beautiful weekend, so we enjoyed ourselves with a walk on the beach:





The boys amused themselves playing on "the big bad rock". I still don't know why Our big boy and his cousins have thusly named the rock, but the name seems to have lasted 3 seasons so far!



As well, we had a musical yelling competition, which I enjoyed because learning to sing and match pitch can come in many weird forms! Our little one already is quite the little singer! At one point, our big boy shows his directing skills when he uses his arms and voice (so no actual verbal instructions) to add a new rhythmic and melodic dimension to their little piece :-)



While our little one had a nap, our big boy helped me plant some fall bulbs... hopefully when we pull up in early spring, we will have some early tulips and daffodils to great us! As well, we planted some bluish-purple lilies that will come up later on.



This past weekend, we went to Naomi and Gary's to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. It was a fun day, with horseback riding:





You can see that someone thought the ride was too slow. What you're hearing is "GO!!! GO!!!"



...playing in leaves:



.... and generally burning off energy:


...and of course a great meal and PUMPKIN PIE! Kieran's favourite:



Unfortunately our big boy's stomach has been hurting for a few days, and he ended up saying his stomach hurt so much that Kurt took him to the local hospital at about 4-5am after having been awake with him up to that point. The doctor felt that it wasn't serious after some tests and checking, but after being up all night, we decided to go home early so everyone can relax before our hectic week starts again... clearly we were pretty tired as this is how most of the trip was spent:

More words....

Our little one says:

"George" - he says it for George of the Jungle, or Curious George... he's not picky
"Diego" - sort of... he's a big fan
"Dora"

Last night he was trying to fall asleep, but suddenly as I was cuddling him he had something on his mind. He lifted his head up and started touching my ears, then his ears; my eyes, then his eyes. He continued with cheeks, mouth, nose, forehead, head. He repeated most of them after I said them. Then he cuddled down and went to sleep! Just had to know parts of the head suddenly!

What's our little one sayin' now??

Now he also says:
- Bop (the name for my Dad)
- Nana
- His little cousin's name (his little cousin... every time her picture comes up on our screensaver he says her name)
- useful ones for getting diapers changed (and that is when he uses them, instead of for the exciting comic effect that thrills 4 year olds) - well, just guess
- Stuck! - also very useful for getting out of tight places, or getting stuff that you can't get yourself
- Shoes - he has a shoe "thing"... has to wear everyone's shoes... so that makes sense
- Woohoo!!!
- ball

I was just asking him now if he can say Blue, Diego or yucky, but it just made him start looking for toys with those names, or wonder why I was telling him he's yucky, so I'll let those go for now! He understands a lot, though!

He likes dressing up with his big brother with all their dress up clothes! They were in about 4-5 different costumes this evening... Davy Crocket, a fireman, some type of wizard and:

Organizin'

There are a LOT of clothes being taken out of boxes, put in boxes, reorganized for yard sales and consignment, analysed for future use.... it took me all last weekend!

Time spent organizing all the clothes last weekend: 10 hours...

First Day of school

Kieran had his first full day of school this past Monday. He is in Kindergarten, but in the school division we live in, nursery school is part of the division, so he's actually been at school for a whole year already, and even has the same teacher, who he loves. He's enjoying it, and was actually looking forward to starting again!




Here is a picture of a chilly little Schaefer on the beach, which can be titled "Summer's over"


A couple of cute September pics:





We just had sushi for supper, and it occured to me that I have never taken pictures of Kieran demonstrating how much he loves it... although it would be better to have a picture of his absolute favourite type, which is sashime and is basically a big slab of raw salmon on some rice... but this is pretty good anyway! Michelle, thanks for those dishes... we get a lot of use out of them!

Summer continues...

Figuring out how to use sunglasses


One week in August, the lake was DISGUSTING with crazy foaming algae that looked like The Blob movie, but the size of a huge lake... and green (by the way, EVERYONE should support the Lake Winnipeg Foundation at http://www.lakewinnipegfoundation.org/ ). The pics below were taken by my mom, Mavis Whicker:





So, we chose a very fun alternative. We went to the water slides at Grand Beach which we wanted to do all summer, but there is nothing like green slime to get you going:


Christoff came for a fun visit...

.... during which he took a tree down for us (thanks!)


And then played on the beach:


Here is Kurt, enjoying his new screen room during some rain:


As always, our big boy keeps drawing his neat doodles:

Ahhhh... Lake William!

We took our boys camping for the first time this past weekend and it was fun... tiring but fun! Our big boy has actually camped before, but this is a first for both of them to be there together!

Having a rest before the first big day!


Hiking around Turtle Mountain!


Enjoying some excellent rollkuchen after the hike! Thanks for the treat!


Relaxing after a short rain storm:

A game of peek-a-boo with "the master of illusion":


Some new thing's our little one has been saying in the last while (some of which is on video here as well):
"Look at that"
"There it is" (sort of sounds like "dayeeiizzz" with a sing-song quality, but that's what he means :-)
"Dad" - this is exclaimed very loudly and repeatedly until Kurt answers him...
"Nana" - can be seen in a previous video
"Uh oh" - can be seen in a previous video but he says it much clearer now!
"Yeah!!" - which he said over and over when we put him in the MEC backpack... or it could have also been:
"Yay!!!" which he also says!
"What's up?" which he says more like "What up?" and uses his arms in a questioning manner... I have this on our other video camera which is good because I can't get him to do it anymore! haha!

Just the four of us! Good beach days!

We were down at the beach by ourselves this week, and we had a lot of everything! A lot of treats (our big boy had an ice cream cone that he had to eat in 2 different stages), a lot of relaxation, a lot of sunshine, and a lot of fun!

Our little one loves his big brother's new gear:



Having a suppertime picnic on the beach after both our boys woke from long, luxurious afternoon naps:



More couch cuddles:



Enjoying a classic tale:


Nice screen room, Kurt! We love it!

more line drawings

Our big boy made another picture that he wanted to describe.
Here's the picture:



Here's the description:

Bad deer! BAD!!!!!

So! My lilies, which looked like THIS last year...



...look like THIS because of the PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED DEER:



So my big boy and I went hunting for EVIDENCE!



Here is our evidence video! You can hear me interrupting him as he says he sees "evidence" of a deer... good evidence work, sweetie! He brought his cousin over to investigate as well!


So, I'm going to try the Irish Spring idea, see if that helps!! Yeesh! Why can't they eat blueberries!?

Sand washed away!

Crazy windstorm over the weekend! It washed tonnes of sand away on what is normally a very sandy beach... neat rocks, though:





Seeing the world a different way!

Fun way to spend an hour!

Our big boy went to Cartown today for a birthday party! Very fun!





Mostly he just drove around himself...




...while our little one played on all the play equipment (thank goodness for that stuff or it would have been very hard to stop him running around the kids in cars).....




But for a bit our big boy had a passenger (there was a seatbelt).




What ACTUALLY happened:


What mommy saw through "mom eyes":