MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Happy birthday, Kurt!!

Little something we were working up today while we were making our Christmas album...hehe!

That's how you spell it....

So, because our little one will be going to nursery school at the ripe and mature age of 3 this fall, I wrote him a little ditty to help him remember it this past summer... then every once in while we sing it with him. I wanted it to be short, and catchy - you know - like "By Mennen" or "What would you do - o -o - oooo" for a Klondike bar??" so not to win any composition awards for originality and eeriness, but to be catchy and short and fun to sing if you're 2 (which he was until quite recently)... Last fall I was at home sick one day, and pumped it up a bit by adding some beats to make it more fun to sing (as he likes catchy songs from Yo Gabba Gabba, or They Might Be Giants). I could hardly speak that week, so I'll have to redo the voice part one day now that I have my mic at home... Tonight I made him a little video to really connect the letters. You'd think that this might not be helpful, but actually he REALLY gets letters and can recognize any of them by having them pointed at randomly on posters, signs, books etc. I'm not even sure if he knows the alphabet song to realize how much of an incredible grasp he has of the letters out of the alphabet song context. Anyway, I give credit to his own interest in asking which letters are which with alphabet pretzels, or books, and I give HUGE credit to how he LOVES to play with the letters at starfall.com which is an INCREDIBLE website that a grade 1 teacher told me about a few years ago!

So, here is his video to help him learn to spell his name (or anyone for that matter... there are so many different spellings). Kurt liked it but told me to add lots of record scratches, so it's been added to even more just today:

Charles M. Schulz philosophy

Click HERE for some good advice from the creator of Charlie Brown!

Nativity craft!

I found this great nativity craft a year or two ago on a website called Mormonchic.com and thought it was so cute! So, he finally started making it this year! A week ago, he painted the pots:



and then today we reviewed the beautiful stars in my favourite Christmas book, "The Christmas Lamb" by Sekiya Miyoshi that my mom gave me when I was little... I wish I could find a link with the pictures... but I don't have to because Kieran just looked at it for a second, then quickly set himself to understanding the chalk medium and made his own interpretation of the book's stars - and created his own beautiful shining Christmas night for his set:



Next, we're going to find sticks outside and stick them into some plasticene to create a stable (his idea - taking the original craft up a few notches and making it his own) and then stick some raffia all over the top to be like straw... anyway, as you can see it's working out a LOT better than the gingerbread house - but at least the gingerbread house is yummy!

Merry stuff!

Hangin' with Santa and Mrs.Claus at the Festival of Trees and Lights! These are sweaters that the boys spontaneously picked for themselves while I was shopping for something else... I went with it and they just love their matching sweaters! So great!

Whew! He sure looks happier this year with his little Rudolf set! Last year he wanted to wear it but wasn't smiling for some reason, so he looked like when someone dresses up a pomeranian in a ball gown... but this year he is super smiley!

Yay! Helping mommy make muffins with Aunt Barb's special chef set!

Starting to make our gingerbread house!


Playing with the Christmas decorations... notice the shirt that Nana bought him that says "Naughty is the new 'nice'"... apt.




Putting the gingerbread house together... Kurt will NEVER let me caulk anything in our house after watching my misadventures yesterday!


But hey... they had fun!!!!

Nope... no good...



I saw an amazing picture of a beautiful English cathedral done in gingerbread on Google images this morning... and I said "Wow... they win" to which my big boy shouted "No they don't because ours has WAY more candy!! So - as long as the boys are happy! Next year we're making an a-frame one like the vintage Fisher Price cottage! Just a triangle! How hard can it be to lean 2 slabs together?? Stay tuned!

Yes, Jesus loves him!

He picks up tunes REALLY easily so here's one he's doing at his preschool:


Hehe!

Pileated woodpecker in front of our house!

Sometimes we come outside and this guy is here:

Guess he doesn't see the bright orange spray paint dot that says it's going to be cut down :-( Oh well!

Kurt also says a bald eagle flew over our house around Thanksgiving weekend! Crazy!

Our baby is 3!! Well... as of, like, 3 weeks ago...

Okay, somewhere near the end of November I get concert brain, and forget to do lots of stuff, such as write here! I have to direct 6 concerts in the next 2 days which involves several different song styles, age levels, and several different languages that I do NOT speak... sooo... yeah... busy. Anyway! Here is some birthday picks from my BIG BOY (sniff!)

Here are the Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes... His favourite show:

In case you are wondering what the show is like, this pretty much covers it:

Click: I like to DANCE!!!

The first episode ever, my big boy and I sat there pretty much like this for the entire show:

and then when it was over, we just said "That was weeeiiirrrd...."


Anyway, back to our little one's birthday! He loved the cupcakes, and when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" he was thrilled to have his special moment... he really "got it" this year!

Opening some presents:
Some wheels from Uncle Roger!

Special presents a week later with Grandma and Grandpa!

Christmas fun!

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Gotta play in the leaves!

Came home yesterday to see the neighbours had made a HUUUUUUUGE leaf pile! Well... everyone decided to jump in it together!

Pretending to drive an AT-AT:

A late lake adventure!

Yesterday at lunch I decided that I wanted all of us to accompany Kurt to the lake today (Saturday) because the weather was so nice! He was going down today anyway because he wanted to make sure the roof of the addition was covered.... so the boys and I joined him! We admired the new work done on the addition, and the boys stood in their new room (to be)...

Ate lunch outside (yes, it was that nice - high 13 Celsius, actually - great for November):

Then we played in the park all afternoon...


Walked on the beach and saw some animal tracks...



And were tired out!

I CAN READ THIS!

I almost got tears in my eyes just now. I was sitting in the living room with our boys, while our big boy was looking at a VHS tape cover of Star Wars. All of the sudden he exclaimed "I can read this!!" He said, very excitedly, that he just started figuring out the sounds of the letters and he realized it said "A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away...."

Now of course it would say that, but still that connection to the sounds and then the word recognition - very cool! What I was so happy about is that it made HIM so happy to realize he can figure out words if he wants to. Then he was excited to pick up the next box... it was a bit harder with a longer word but he figured it out... "The battle continues..." Indeed it does!

Thanksgiving

We were supposed to go to Boissevain for Thanksgiving, but weren't able to because of delays with doing the addition so everything got pushed back a week (and then 2 weeks... then 3 weeks) but all considered I was pretty sick that weekend so it was good we didn't have to do all that organizing, driving, organizing, driving when really I just needed rest... so I got to rest and then we had dinner on Monday which was a lot less hectic with driving and filling the van etc...

We had some pies for which I decided that I am NEVER putting lard or shortening in a pie crust again when you can just use BUTTER! I used Anna Olsen's idea (host of Fresh on Foodtv.ca) to grate the solid butter through a cheese grater and just fluff the flour instead of using the pastry cutter forever and it worked great! Our little one wanted apple (and so did Kurt as he says it's his favourite) and Big Boy wanted pumpkin... so I made both! I put toffee bits in both of them - mmmmm caramel is good for everyone... and Kurt thought the pumpkin was really good that way - he thought it would be too sweet but really it just kind of took the edge off the pumpkin and made it nice!

I can never get away with making a normal apple pie top - our big boy always wants the lattice top! Fun to do...




Kurt got the same thing I did so he's been home all week but he felt he should try to walk around a bit, so we used our free Boo at the Zoo tickets... Our Little One was shocked into silence for the whole hour... his eyes were wide open and he pretty much never cracked a smile, but every time we asked if he wanted to go on a ride, or touch a snail, or pat a cockroach, he nervously nodded yes... we think he was just fascinated but it was so new that he didn't even know how to react!

The new addition so far

Here's a slideshow of the new addition at the cottage so far:

Fallness, and Mom's birthday!

Fall SUDDENLY came yesterday... here you can see a tree working frantically to lose as many leaves as possible:



And I guess this was why, because later in the same day:



The kids loved it though... glad I'd already located jackets and boots:





Last week we had a party for mom! As usual, the kids ran around in all the cool costumes that everyone has given us and eating yummy Chinese food... and then the cake! I loved making this cake... it's not a cheese cake, it was more like chocolate mousse except it was filled with whipped cream - so not sure what that makes it... yummy though! The little guy is partially dressed as... King Arthur? It's too long on him and he kept slipping all over the place, which only made him realize the physical comedy aspect of falling:

Some early Halloween fun

For the record, Big Boy wishes he was the werewolf... but both boys love watching this anyway. The skull face (that sings) was drawn by our Big Boy for his daddy for Father's Day. On the bottom right of the screen is a symbol you can click on to make the video take up your whole screen. When you are done watching, press the escape (Esc) key on your keyboard!

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The summer that kept happening in September!

Sep 2nd - water fun:



Sep 4 - Our family isn't truly happy unless we are jumping off of something:


Sep 5 - the boys out for a talk... or a sail...



Our Big Boy's cool Castle Garden that we made:



Sep 7 Kurt's new sail:



Our boys first day of Grade 1/preschool:




Sep 18 - Out for dinner for our 10th anniversary:



Sep 19 - still beachin' it!





Sep 26th... cooling off but still nice enough for shorts! Other people were swimming while we were on the beach:



... and still nice enough to make a castle: