Jake

Jake, he's such a snuggly, happy, sunshiney boy! He's always in a good mood and can always make me laugh. He is always dancing and singing to his own little tune. I love it when I pick him up from school and he runs to me saying "Mommy, Mommy!" and gives me the hugest hugs. He's always willing to share anything he has and is happy to do it. He'll randomly walk up to Rob and I and ask us he if we need a hug and give us one or two or five!

The Weekend

So Saturday Jordyn had an 8 am basketball game, yuck! That was the last 8 am one, though. She is doing so well, I'm really proud of her. When I got home from the game Rob told me the grandparents called and were coming down and we were supposed to meet at Chuck a Rama. Rob met the grandparents and brought them to Max's game and they were able to see the last half and Max made a few baskets while they were there!

Sunday was kind of a lazy day. I didn't feel well, so we didn't go to church. Rob took the kids to see Tron while I stayed home. It was really weird to be home all alone on a Sunday afternoon!

Monday Rob and I took the kids for a walk on one of the trails here in town. It was fun. We heard some frogs down by the river, but didn't see any. We had the kids do some races, trying to wear them out a little bit. I don't know how well that worked! Not too long after we got home it was time to meet Jan and Ruth on the Red Hill to hike with them. Jake was all over the place, the little stinker! I finally threatened him with not coming again and he finally decided to stay close to Aunt Ruth. After our walks Jordyn rounded up her friends and filmed her film for her Reflections project. I haven't seen any of it, we'll see how it ends up. Next weekend I need to sit down with her and show her how to edit it.

So, that was our weekend!!

A boy and his dog

Buster. What can I say about Buster? Buster is an awesome dog. I don't know what we'd do without him. He came into our lives by accident, just when we were actively looking for a dog. He is such a good boy, very lovable and protective. We all love him, but Max has a special bond with him. He'll sit with Buster for quite a while, just talking to him or petting him, making sure there is nothing on his fur. The other day Max was laying on the floor with his head on Busters chest, reading a book. They both looked so happy. I know I took a picture, but couldn't find it. I'll have to post it another day. Max tells me all the time, Mom, when I grow up and have my own house if you don't want Buster anymore I'll take him for you. I'll even pay you for him! I tell him we'd just let you take him, buddy. I just told Rob today that Max shows more affection to Buster than he does to us!

I added in the pictures of Konner and Kirsten (my cutie pie nephew and niece!) to show that Buster is so gentle with all kids, especially babies. He let Konner crawl all over him. When he gets sick of it he just gets up and goes somewhere else.

I have to add that when we are gone for extended periods of time Buster will get one of everyone's shoes out of the cubby and string them across the house. He doesn't chew on them, I think he just likes them around so he can smell us. Oh, another good Buster story. One night Rob called me at work and told me that Jake had fallen asleep on his bed pretty early, about 5:30 or 6:00 and was all covered up with his blanket. Buster wandered all around the house like he was looking for someone and wouldn't settle down. Then wanted to go outside but then wanted back in pretty quickly. Rob figured out that he was probably looking for Jake, so he took Buster in the boys room, uncovered Jake to show Buster and he immediately settled down to relax because he knew where everyone was! I've also noticed that if I'm in my bedroom cleaning or watching tv for extended amounts of time he'll come looking for me, when he finds me he just wanders off to check on someone else. I love that dog!

Lost!

At Jordyn's basketball game last week Jake decided to wander off. I lost track of him for a good 20 minutes. I was about ready to have a heart attack! I notified the staff at the Community Center to help me look for him. A staff member found him in the next gym. I haven't been that scared in a really long time. He was not happy with me when I made him sit next to me the entire time at Max's game a few hours later!

These pictures were all taken during Jordyn's game. He LOVES his picture taken. Whenever the camera comes out he is a cheese'n fool! During half time I had him running from me to the wall over and over in the hopes of getting some of his energy out, but that didn't work so well!

Basketball

I guess I didn't take as many pictures at Jordyn's game as I did at Max's! I'll have to make sure to take my camera next time and get a few more of Jordyn. She is really enjoying playing and is getting very good. She has made quite a few baskets for her team! When I first signed her up I thought she was just wanting to play because Max was playing something, but I figured out that that is not the case. She is really liking basketball alot more than soccer.

Basketball!

Max and Jordyn both had basketball games today. They are having a really good time and it's fun to watch them. (I've enjoyed watching the basketball games more than soccer!) Max is pretty obsessed with basketball and he is really very good at it! I'm really proud of him.

I will post a collage of Jordyn's game tomorrow!

psst! you can click on the collage to make it bigger to see the pictures better!

Done

I downloaded Picasa the other night and I just got done tagging all my pictures. That was a HUGE project. It has a face recognition feature, so I had, literally, thousands of faces to go through and tag. I'm done with that so now I plan to do some heavy picture posts here in the near future! Fun, fun!

In the Funnies

Jake is so darn cute! I just want to squeeze him! Anyway, today he had a Kool-Aid moustache so I called him Moustache Face. He looked at me very seriously and touched his upper lip and said "it's not a moustache, it's peach hair!" So dang funny!

Catching up

I am going to go through my pictures and do some posts of events over the past year that I didn't blog about. Then I am going to pull them out when I'm slow on posts to post!

Here is a picture of Si at the Roller Rink in Delta on Autumn's birthday. Enjoy!

Overheard at the dinner table

Jordyn asked me if Italian is what they speak in Italy. I said yes. Rob (being sarcastic) asked what they speak in England. Jordyn said English. Max said (in an incredulous tone) they do??? It was so funny.

Cabin Fever

All day yesterday the kids begged to go to the park. There was just one small problem with that. It rained. ALL.DAY.LONG. This morning I had to run a quick errand and when I was done I decided that there was not a reason that we couldn't go to the park for a while. We hurried home and grabbed hats and gloves and headed to the park! We called Jan and she met us over there, bonus for us. The kids had fun playing and running around, which is just what this momma wanted, them to get some of their pent up energy out! The toys were pretty slick with ice, but no one got hurt and the kids had fun, so that's all that matters.







A while after we got home Max was whining to me that he was bored and didn't have anything to do. I told him to quit whining or I'd find him something. I suggested that he could clean the bathroom. He didn't like that too much, but kept whining. Then I had a brilliant idea! I was washing dishes so I told him to get a library book and sit at the table and read to me. He wasn't too enthused but I made him do it and I think he ended up enjoying himself. I'm sure he had more fun reading to me than he would have had cleaning the bathroom!

Si didn't go to the park with us, that's why there are no pictures of him.

**edited to add that I actually wrote this post on Thursday and scheduled it to post today!

Shelfari

Yay! I finally found the Shelfari website. I had seen it alot on blogs about a year ago and was always going to add it to my blog, but never did. A few weeks ago I remembered it and wanted to add it to my blog, but could not remember what the widget was called, so I kept doing Google searches for blog bookshelves and finally came across the Shelfari website. I am so happy. I will be adding more books to it, but not tonight.

New Year Resolutions

I've never been one for doing New Year(s)? Resolutions but I've decided to put down a few this year. I'm hoping that by making them public I will hold myself accountable and follow through with them. Here they are.

1. Keep better track of where my money goes and try to stop unnecessary money leaks!

2. Set a realistic budget and stick to it.

3. Put more money in savings. For the past few years I have put $10 a payday into an online savings account (it is purposefully online so it takes a few days to access the money) Last payday or the one before (I can't remember exactly which) I upped the amount to $20 a payday. I have used this money for our usual trip to visit family in the summer and then again for the kids' Christmas. I also want to start putting any extra money in my account after bills are paid into savings to help pad our non existent Emergency Fund.

4. Keep up with my blog!

5. Scan the waist high stack of boxes of pictures from my mom into the computer and put to disc to pass out to my siblings and my mom. That is going to be one big job! I scanned about 6 albums from Jan this year and it took me forever!

Here's to keeping my 2011 resolutions! Good luck to me.