Four today!

Our little baby is four. Amazing! He had a great day of family, presents, birthday cake and fun.

He started the day with the traditional birthday breakfast out. Only Daddy, Nana, and Reagan were invited along. Cooper, Hudson, and I were not so lucky. I'll try not to read too much into that or take it too personally. Ouch.

Mary and the kids came for dinner and then Oma and Opa joined us for dessert.

And a beautiful rainbow showed up in our front yard just for the occasion. We figured that must be lucky.

Happy Birthday Taggart. We love you!

Where do I start?

I always seem to put off blogging when I have so much to say that I don't know how much detail to go into about all that has happened. But since the kids all are in bed at a decent hour and Tony is once again working late I will put off no more.

I must start with our week at the lake in Osoyoos. Here it is in short point form followed by my favorite photos of the week (very tough to narrow them down).

1. The place we rented was great - better than I imagined.

2. The weather was a little disappointing - much more rain and low temperatures than are normal for that area in August.

3. We had a choice of the lake or a pool to swim in - the pool was usually the first choice as it was heated.

4. Some great bonding time for the kids. A whole week together with their big cousins, for my kids, was bliss.

5. Nice to watch Tony have some real fun with the kids and be relaxed after being so busy with work lately. It took him a few days to get into vacation mode so for that reason I would have liked to stay another week.

6. My sister joined us on Wednesday, along with Nana. So nice to have some extra time with her. Some one to share a bottle of wine with and some good conversations that I wish could have lasted longer but I'm grateful for our time.

7. Lots of great Okanagan peaches. :)

8. Taggart turned into a fish - swimming more than I've ever seen. Wish I could have video-taped his 'caterpillar' swim. Face in, hands to his side, and the funniest up and down motion that seemed to propell him through the water.

9. Late night poker games with Tony and the kids and loads of candy.

10. While Cooper and Hudson were off with Jake, and Reagan was with Rochelle and Olivia, I got to spend some time with Tag and watching him happy playing on his own in the sand was a delight.

11. To wrap it up Cooper's words. I asked him what a highlight of the week was for him and his answer: "Just everyone being there - nobody off somewhere else, Daddy not gone at work, just everyone right there close together." Perfectly sums it up, I think.

Tuesday Leni flew home. Her flight was not until midnight so we made the most of the day by leaving for Vancouver early to do some shopping, hang out and just generally spend a last day together. We ended the day at Rudy and Tina's for a great dinner (nice to visit with Emily and Anita & Jordan as well) before she had to head off to the airport. I missed her the second I said goodbye and the drive back home was sad and lonely. And at the risk of sounding even more sappy, my sister is the one person in the world who I can be completely honest with and I never feel one ounce of judgement. Thank you Leni. I love her dearly and count the days when we can continue our conversations and share another bottle of wine.

A glimmer of hope...

After what seems to have been endless bickering, teasing, whining, pushing, and just generally getting on eachothers nerves (as well as mine) today was a good day. They got out things to play with and actually played together and had fun.

I sent them to clean their room and they did it together eventhough Cooper says he did most of the work and Hudson did hardle anything. I told him that he should have just done his share and then left Hudson with the rest. His response: "I know but I didn't want him stuck in there cause I needed him to play with." Music to a mother's ears. There's hope for those two, I know there is. And because of the good behaviour they got their GameGoys back which I had confiscated quite some time ago because of bad behaviour.

Random Cooper Quote: (upon discovering the date today) "Summer vacation is slipping though my hands like grains of sand."

15 years

Fifteen years ago we got married.

How can it feel like just yesterday and forever ago in the same moment?

The bottom line is that we are partners, we are supporters, we are friends, we are in this thing together.

This thing is exactly what got me reminiscing today (I am definitely the reminiscing type) as we spent our 15th anniversary at the waterslides with the kids. Exactly what I wanted to do, by the way. As I watched all four kids running toward us at one point I couldn't help but think about where we were way back then and where we are today. How did this become us? How did so much happen and evolve in such a short time? What I came up with? - we are blessed.

We had a great time at the slides and when we got home with 4 hungry, tired children my husband said 'I'll take care of this, you go visit with your sister'. I am blessed.

Thank you. Love you. Here's to 15 more.

Could I get a little more summer over here, please?

Seriously, I feel like I took a nap and missed July. How could it already be August and we hadn't been to the beach yet? So Thursday I packed up the kids and a cooler and we headed to White Rock. I am just starting to do these 'day-trips' on my own, without Tony, lately. It is getting easier as they get older. Eventhough I wasn't sure how I was going to manage when somebody had to go to the bathroom or even carrying everything from the car to the beach we did it. We did it and we did it well. We had so much fun. The weather was perfect and so was the water.

Cooper found this big long seaweed thing that very closely resembled a whip, so he was Indiana Jones for a while. Reagan and Tag started this little game just as it was time to go. Why do they always seem to have the most fun when it's time to leave?

I thought Tony might meet us there for dinner but when I realized that he would be working late I figured we would just head home for dinner. But the kids would have none of that. "We can't come to White Rock and not have fish-n-chips", they all screamed. So we packed up our beach stuff back into the truck (which is much more of a task than in the van) and headed down to Moby Dick's (our fave). Parking was horribel and it took us a couple of drive-by's to find a spot and it was a little hike away but the kids were willing to walk. There was a line-up and we had to wait about 20 minutes for our food but the kids were willing to wait. So finally we got our cardboard box of hot, greasy, delicious food and headed back across the road to the beach to eat our dinner on the grass. And just as we were finishing Tony showed up to eat the leftovers and have some ice cream with us.(No photos of this last part because the camera stayed in the truck)

And in keeping with the fact that summer is over halfway through and we still have some things to check off on our summer 'to-do' list we headed to Seattle this weekend. We all added one or two things to the list at the beginning to the summer and the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle was one of Tony's picks. Since the weather was supposed to be better on Sunday than Saturday we did the outlet mall on Saturday. About 9 hours of shopping later we headed to our hotel for some takeout pizza and sleep. The kids were troopers and we got some good deals on back to school stuff. The zoo was great and we closed it down at 6:00. After some dinner at Red Robin's off the I-5 we made it home at around 10:30 with four very exhausted kiddos (and 2 very exhausted parents). We all slept in this morning (sorry, Tony).

2008

2006

Adventures, family, and oatmeal

Firstly, I have to post about an adventure the boys had a few day ago. Cooper keeps asking me "Have you put that on the blog yet, Mom?" So now I can answer "yes".

Thursday we spent the morning running errands and Hudson asked me if we could stop off at Rexall to see if they had the Toucan Webkinz so he could purchase it. Even though our house is actually becoming over-run with these stuffed creatures, I pulled in to the parking lot against my better judgement. To my relief, they had the Toucan and Hudson could make his purchase. Bu for some strange reason, he now couldn't decide if this is actually what he wanted to spend his hard-earned $ on. After some prodding I realized that the Blue Jay is set to be released and he was torn between the two birds. We left the store without the toucan and headed off to do our errands. On the way, he talked me into making another stop at a 'Webkinz dealer' to check if they by chance already had the BlueJay. Nope, but they also had the Toucan. But again we leave empty-handed.

Later that day Hudson, now realizing that he would rather have a bird now than a bird later, asks me to take him back to Rexall to get the Toucan. I really felt that I had done enough Webkinz hunting for one day so my answer was no. Rexall is really not that far away so I sarcastically said "Go up there and get it yourself."

"Really? Can we?" very excitedly, two boys are telling me that they could ride their bikes there. Hesitantly I agree and the buzz begins. They are flying around the house, getting their wallets, water bottles and a couple bucks from me to buy a slushie. Even though I was nervous for them to go on this adventure for the first time -first time on their bikes that far without an adult, first time making a purchase in a store by themselves, first time in 7/11 trying to fill up their own slushie cups - I was reassured by their camaraderie, the togetherness as they headed out together with only themselves.

They made it back in one piece, with smiles on their faces, arm in arm with bigger slushies than I ever would have allowed if I would have been there. They felt proud and happy and so did I.

Some great family time this Sunday for a BBQ at John and Christine's. My sweet sis is here and there's nothing else I can say about that. Love, love spending time with her.

Reagan got to be there as well, despite the chicken pox. She had a great time with Evie. She took the place of Tag in our foursome as he was having some quality Nana time.

Finally, the update on Reagan. She is very, very spotty. Not too itchy yet but I fear that stage is yet to come. She is a real trooper and complains very little. Lots of oatmeal baths, popsicles and movies.

A case of bad timing

Right now this little girl should not be lying on the couch watching movies, she should be packing her bag for her first time at sleep away camp. But this morning as I gave her a shower and washed her hair I noticed spots. SPOTS! A quick trip to the clinic confirmed it - chicken pox. Shes the only one in this family who could get it. The big boys have had them and Tag's been vaccinated. I am, of course, kicking myself now that I didn't vaccinate her as well. She's handling it pretty well. After a break down in the truck after we left the doctor, Cooper has been doing a good job of taking care of her and keeping her mind occupied.

Me, on the other hand, I am not doing so well. I was so looking forward to taking my girl to camp. But things happen for a reason, right?!

Now the other issue - family BBQ tonight at John and Christine's. Reagan was going to miss it so I didn't even tell her that Evie and our newest Braun, Caleb were going to be there. She would have been so disappointed. Now, can we take her? That wouldn't be very responsible, I'm thinking. I think I will make a couple calls to see if the other sets of parents were more responsible than I and vaccinated thier children. We'll see how it all plays out.

For now, Daddy just brought donuts so I'm going to go enjoy one with my spotty girl.