Friday, October 31, 2014

Happy Hallowe'en

Our Hallowe'en is going to be unusual this year. After all, Dave already baked an apple crisp this morning (It's barely 8am as I'm writing this), and I've already made 26 banana ghosts. Who are we and will the real us return once this holiday ends?!!

Also, for the first time ever, we have a "family costume theme." Do you know what Dave and I are?! I worked really hard hand sewing our ear headbands yesterday. Ha!

Since the weather here is awful -- rain, rain, go away, -- we are going to go trick or treating at Dave's work and then tonight we're going to do something a little different. Tune in on Monday to see how we spent our evening.

I hope you all have good days, a good weekend, and eat just the right amount of chocolate! Or whatever your preferred Hallowe'en treat is.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Day Piglet Came To Visit

The other day Piglet came to visit. He arrived after we had dropped Sam off at school. At 9:45am, Piglet watched some Franklin episodes.
At 10:13am, Piglet had a banana for snack.
At 11:48am, Piglet ate some oatmeal.
At 1:10pm, Piglet (along with Funny Bunny) was helping to deliver flyers.
By 1:17pm, Piglet was resting in the wagon and having a drink of water.
At 2:08pm, Piglet did an activity book.
Piglet decided to leave our house before we picked Sam up from school. Come again Piglet -- we enjoyed having you visit!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere

Like everyone else with kids in North America, we've visited a couple of pumpkin patches lately. Okay, well maybe you all haven't gone to two patches. The first one we visited had a pumpkin slingshot. Sam was completely intrigued by it, although not enough to actually try it on his own.
Sam would load the pumpkin into the slingshot (okay, they were actually gourds), and then Dave or I would let it go.
I like how you can see the gourd in flight in this picture!

I got to have a turn too. It was actually a lot of fun, although I definitely don't have a talent for it!
Then we headed off into the corn maze. If we had done the maze properly, it would have taken about an hour. Since Sam insisted on finding every dead end, we ended up turning around after about fifteen minutes. I think once the kids are a little older, this will be a great maze to visit.
Since we didn't actually buy any pumpkins the first time (I don't know exactly why we didn't?!?), we went to another patch yesterday with Tessa and Willem. We bought some pumpkins, the kids jumped on the straw bales, and Tessa and Willem took Sam and Rachel through the (much smaller) corn maze while Janice and I shopped a little :)
And that ends our pumpkin patch visits for this fall.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Project 364: Days 291 Through 297

I don't try to have themes for my Project 364 pictures but I noticed this week that all my pictures were about relaxing, eating food, and capturing images of Fall in our area.

October 19, 2014 -- I took this picture of dried corn stalks with fall colour in the background during our visit to a pumpkin patch.
October 20, 2014 -- I wasn't feeling great this day so I relaxed on the couch, eating cookie butter and cookies, and reading a book. Obviously I wasn't suffering from a stomach ailment! Ha ha ha!!! (Sorry for the re-post from Instagram but some days I just don't take a lot of pictures.)
October 21, 2014 -- I ended a second day of feeling under the weather by eating some popcorn and reading an overdue library book.
October 22, 2014 -- Dave and I have been inspired to watch Friends again. And eat nachos of course :)
October 23, 2014 -- This is a picture of all the fall colours on our little street. I love how beautiful it is, especially when the sun is shining and the sky is a brilliant blue.
October 24, 2014 -- Dave and I tried a new place for our date night. It was okay food but we now know why they were trying to get people through their doors by giving out coupons!
October 25, 2014 -- I captured this photo during a tour of our local landfill.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Run Daddy Run!

Dave ran a 5K this past Sunday. This is the second one he's done and I'm so proud of him.
Rachel wanted to make sure that Daddy's event was well documented, and Sam helped out by writing Dave's bus number on a piece of paper and giving it to him so he "wouldn't forget!"
Our first glimpse of Dave heading for the finish. He's the runner on the right, wearing a white shirt, running past the guy in the bright green shirt.
Dave sees his cheering fans. The kids (with some help from me) made a sign which said, "Go Daddy!" and was beautifully decorated. Sadly, I got no pictures of the sign. Also, I was very thankful for the man who offered to hold Rachel so she could see Dave while I took pictures, one handed, while also holding the sign. Sam was holding himself up on the barricade so couldn't hold the sign. It was quite the balancing act. In other news, does anyone want to come be my race support next time Dave does a 5K?! :)
Dave races to the finish. The woman he is running with is a friend of mine and they found each other early on in the run and ran the whole way together.
We also signed Sam and Rachel up for the Kids 400m Fun Run. Sam was super excited and made sure he was very warmed up. He also "ran the course" for practice a few times, just to make sure he knew what he was doing! Ha ha ha!!!
He wasn't the only kid eager for the run to start. This was about twenty minutes before it actually began.
Sam and Rachel have obviously picked up some pointers and knew to get into the starting position. I was laughing really hard at this point so Dave had to take over picture taking duty.
It was too crowded at the beginning of the actual run to get a good picture so I made Dave and the kids pose here afterwards. We had agreed at the beginning of the run that Dave would run with Sam and I would run with Rachel. This was Rachel's choice, by the way. Dave started off running with us until it was clear that Sam was way faster than Rachel at which point he took off after Sam. So for the next 300m Rachel was running, calling "Daddy, wait for me!", and crying her head off. I was laughing so hard I could barely run.

I was really proud of Rachel for continuing to run even though she was so upset Dave had left her. And Dave and I later declared that for Rachel it was the "Un-fun Run!"

I'm so proud of how well my family did in their various runs on Sunday. Maybe next time I will actually join them in a run of my own. Maybe...

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Niagara Falls Inspires Poetry

Breaking up a trip
By stopping to take in the
Wonder of The Falls
The water rushes
The kids lean over, intrigued
Mommy's heart races
Family picture
Many people take selfies
I admit, me too!
The water's loud noise
Is heard everywhere you go
Its mists fly freely
A seagull's eye view
Flying over the water
Incomparable
High above the crowd
Sam is still mesmerized by
The sight of the falls.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

For The Love Of Family

Our major reason for going to New York was to visit with Dave's grandpa. He turned 96 in September and we hadn't seen him in over a year. We really enjoyed our time with him, and also with Dave's cousins and aunt and uncle.
I found out about this idea from a friend. Basically, to keep the kids from asking "Are we there yet?" every ten seconds, I put some clothespins on this cloth. I had figured out points ahead of time where they could remove a clothespin (ie once we hit Buffalo or Albany). We removed the last clothespin as we arrived at our destination. This was a really tangible way for the kids to see how much time we had left in our journey. 
Rachel enjoyed having Auntie Bobbi read her a story.
Sam found his own unique way to enjoy a book!
We to an authentic Mexican restaurant. (I don't know of a good Mexican restaurant in our area.) The kids were highly intrigued by watching the woman make guacamole right at our table. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! In fact, I wish I had some right now. As well as the rest of my meal.
Sam and Rachel walked with Auntie Bobbi across the bridge to Connecticut. Since our provinces are fairly far apart, this was a really neat experience.
After a quick stop at Trader Joe's (Yay!!!), I introduced everyone to the yummyness that is their Dark Chocolate Cookie Butter Cups. Needless to say, Sam really enjoyed his! 
We went to check out the sukkah at Bobbi and Simon's synagogue. It was amazing. The kids have the book "A Watermelon In The Sukkah" so they were thrilled to see the watermelon sticker in the above left picture. Ha! (Click here to find out more about the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.)
Rachel actually did fairly well in her first attempt with chopsticks!

I realize I don't have a lot of pictures of family, but we spent a lot of time visiting and that is not the most thrilling thing to take pictures of :) But we are so glad we made the trip. It was well worth it.