Random picture post!

Ben modelling Daddy's knee pads - he was ready to help!


Sliding down a hill - he squealed with delight!


Getting ready to throw this at mommy:


All Ella wanted to do was have Grandma Joan pull her in the sled. And like a good Grandma, she did!


Tromping through the snow:

He finally decided to pose for me

As promised...

Wow. Two posts in a day? I think I'm setting the bar too high...

At my company's Christmas party, waiting for the swings to start swingin'!

Eating popcorn, waiting for his turn on the swings:

Ella eating popcorn:


Christmas Eve, surrounded by all the presents


Christmas morning - seriously, what a pile of presents!


Checking out the loot from his stocking:


It's "Wall-Eeeeee"


The only thing Ben wanted from Santa - a hovercraft!


A magnadoodle was on Ella's list:


Awwwwww:


A cool action shot, the lace in motion!


Playing on boxing day:


A funny shot of Charlie


Hot chocolate mustaches...


...or goatees


And now, the floor (in progress):

Shame on us

We are horrible, horrible bloggers, aren't we? I honestly think, almost every day, that I should blog something. And then I forget about whatever blog-worthy happening it was that made me think about it. I got a journal in my stocking at Christmas for this very reason. But I haven't pulled it out yet. And now we're just so out of practice blogging, it's hard to get into it.



I will try harder.



Our home renovations are coming along, albeit pretty slowly. Our walls are out, and hardwoods are about 3/4 done. But now we're getting to the more tenuous areas - against the walls where we can't use the nailer and therefore everything has to be nailed in by hand, around registers and corners, etc. And then we have the hallway to do, which will also be very manual. But it's looking awesome! And hopefully now that Charlie's nails are cut, it will be that way for a little longer. Lesson learned!



Ben is getting pretty excited about his birthday - MY BABY IS GOING TO BE FIVE! How did I become the mom of a 5 year old? Oy. He asks how long until his birthday (it's 31 sleeps...), he's thinking about who he wants to invite, and what he wants to do (play fun games!). I guess I should send a birthday list to some people...



I registered Ben for skating lessons - it's a parent & child class. So that means that I had to find some skates for myself - Ben got his for Christmas from Grandma Joan and Grandpa Bill. Last week was our first class, and he did alright. They basically practiced standing up on the ice for the whole class! And I was hunched over holding him up. But it was fun, and I didn't even fall once! ;) He's also still taking swimming lessons. He's a bit of a slow learner with this - he doesn't like the water in his eyes, and he doesn't like doing his floats. But, I hope that once he gets it, he really gets it and he'll be a fish!



Ella is...uh...one in a million! She's doing a pretty good job potty-training, about 60% of the time she'll make it. But when she's having a bad day, she really has a bad day. She's stubborn and saucy too...but can be very sweet the next minute! Ella loves to pretend to be a kitty or a puppy or a beaver and her and Ben will play like that for quite a while. Usually there's a mommy and a baby, sometimes a Grandma and a Sid, and when they play beavers it's a daddy beaver and a honey beaver. They also like to play Wordgirl and Captain Huggyface. When Ben and Ella play together, it's very, very cute to experience! She is also taking gymnastics again, which is a great way for her to burn off some energy.



I think that's it, in a nutshell. I should really post some pictures...I'll see if I can do that tonight!

Merry Christmas!

The title says it all...Merry Christmas to all of you! We've had a long day of presents, food, more presents, and more food. And lots of great company! And a nap or two ;)

Tell the truth...

If you found your 2-year-old like this, singing her ABCs, would you think she was weird?


And when I went to turn off her light last night, I found her like this:


I didn't know she'd need a backpack for her trip to never-never-land.

She wasn't overly tired when she went to bed last night, so I guess she played a little in her room, and she does like to wear backpacks around the house. So I guess this shouldn't surprise me. I was able to unwind it from her arms without disturbing her too much and she went right back to sleep.

Kids.

Odds 'n ends

I had Ben call Mom on her birthday, but she was out. Of course, their answering machine picked up, and the message said "...leave your name and number..." So Ben waited until he heard the beep (like I told him to), and then he said, "Hi Grandma. It's Ben and our house number is 15. Happy Birthday. Goodbye!"
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Leading up to Halloween last week, the place where the kids take gymnastics encouraged the kids to wear their costumes to class for a little extra fun and some pictures. And then at the end of class, every kid got a ghost - a sucker with a kleenex tied on top of it. On the way home from Ella's class, I unwrap the sucker for her, and her eyes widen and she said to me, "Dank oo so mush Mommy! I so sited!" ("Thank you so much Mommy! I'm so excited!") And then, "Mmmm, tasty!" "I so sited!" (lick) "Mmmm, tasty!" over and over and over again. And we live only 2 blocks away from gymnastics, but she said this about 6 or 8 or 20 times. It was very, very cute. ___________________________________________________________________

Later that evening, I was taking Ben to his swimming class when we had the following conversation: "Mommy, guess what?" "What is it Ben?" "I think I'm growing my first beard!" (trying not to laugh) "Really? You don't think you're a little young for that?" "No, I can feel a couple of hairs here on my chin!"
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Ella is (finally) talking up a storm and loves to sing her ABCs. Typically, the ABCs are like the song that never ends - she just starts all over again, again and again, and again. She came up with something different though - the end verse, instead of "Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me?", according to her, is "I know, I know EFGs, H I J K Ewwa Bee!"

The Halloween Rundown!

I can't really think of a good intro to this post...sorry. Hey, did you know it was Halloween yesterday? :)

It was Ella's turn to be the lion this year - even though Ben initially wanted to be the lion, he ended up wanting to be the dragon again (he was the dragon last year).

Here is Ferocious Ella:


When Ben saw that Ella was getting a nose and whiskers drawn on her face (with Mommy's eyeliner!), he wanted them too:


So there you have it - a dragon with whiskers. Betcha never seen that before!

We set out around 6pm, heading down our street. As per usual, there are only a couple of houses that are giving out candy (what IS up with that????), but the kids got so much darn candy! Seriously, we went to about a dozen houses and they got all this candy:

And that was after we all had eaten some!

I know that we buy a lot of candy, JUST IN CASE this is the year that we get a whack of kids. And it was so nice out yesterday, maybe there'd be more traffic than in prior years. But no, we only had about 11 kids. Where are the good ol' days where all you saw was families walking around the neighborhood, lineups at the houses? Is it the big city? Gord says no, he remembers the same as me. Sigh.

Anyways, at every house, Ben would knock on the door, say "Trick or Treat" and then say the following (verbatim):

"My name is Ben. This is my little sister Ella. I'm dressed up as a dragon and my little sister is dressed up as a lion." And then, if they were lucky, he'd take a couple steps into their house and comment on something - "That's a nice guitar you have there." "Aw, look at the cute kitty!" He was kind of impatient between houses, 'cause the little lion was a little pokey, but she was having fun. After about an hour, Ben was asking to go home, so we gave up and went to see if we could trick Grandma, who was manning our house to give out candy to...no one, really.

Oh, Charlie was "Franken-dog":


Actually, the stitches came out earlier this week. But still...YIKES!

After arriving home from the marathon Trick or Treating:


Ella: "Cheezies? I like Cheese! I hope I don't have to share with Daddy!"
Ben: "Daddy, Ella's having Cheezies!"


And now, a little stroll down memory lane:


My gosh, they are growing up too fast.

A mish-mash of pics

It is getting close to bedtime, so I'm just going to post some pictures from the last couple of weeks...sorry if that's not exciting, but I know some of our readers really look forward to seeing them.

Ella getting Ben's tickles:

And now, a kiss!


And a hug:


"Now, we will play!"


At the playground at Harbour View Golf Course:



There were ducks and a heron (maybe?) to watch on the little lake:



What Ben does...


Ella does:


Still watchin', hanging out on the railing:


That evening, we went bowling:


Psychedelic, dude!


The kids had so much fun bowling! Ben bowled every one of his frames, and 3 of Ella's (she was too interested in eating her supper to bowl). Mommy won, with a solid 139. Gord came in second at 110. Ben was right behind Gord at 102 - isn't that awesome! He's only 8 points off his daddy! And Ella scored in the high 80s or low 90s...it's the only score I don't seem to remember. But she knocked down at least 3 pins every frame - what a trooper!

And now, this is what we did today:









We'll keep posting pictures of the progress, over the next year probably! It's going to be a step-by-step process, that's for sure!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We are so thankful for the fabulous family and friends we have - we love you all!