The farm animals

Erin just got back from taking Charlie for a ride. He got spooked today and bucked her off. My heart skipped a beat when she fell, but she got mad again and demanded back up on Charlie. Man that girl is stubborn. Not sure who she gets that from......

Thought people might enjoy seeing the rest of the gang... Addie, Maestro, and of course Minnie.... we can never forget about Minnie!!

My little superhero!!!!!!

It's a bird...... it's a plane....... it's...... SUPER UNDERDOG!!!!!!

Erin came home from daycare on Friday with a mask - it seems she and her buddies made their own superhero masks - all affectionately known as 'Underdogs'!! She hammed it up for us last night for photo opps!

We had lots of fun at Kacey's birthday party yesterday. I am continually amazed at how Erin's confidence has grown since she started school. In she went, had a big group hug with her little girlfriends, then off they all went to play! She is even getting more assertive around the pineata!! You should have seen the stuff she had!!

Getting ready to go to bed!

Last week of January

We have just about put the month of January in. I can hardly believe it! Well, at least we are moving ever closer to our trip to warmer weather!

The week was pretty uneventful for us. School or daycare and work. This weekend Erin is going to a birthday party for one of her friends from daycare, Kacey, so she is very excited about this! Gord continues to work on the renovations, and that is his plan for the weekend. He really wants to get as much of the inside done before the nice weather, so we can move outside and get the pool ready and enjoy it! I think we are all equally excited about having the pool for the summer!

The week ahead looks pretty normal too. I have an arbitration hearing on Monday, which will mean a long day for me, but not a huge issue!

Well, I suppose I should start to do some tidying up and get the grocery list together for the week. It is very nice to not have a lot going on. I think it's true what they say, that the winter sometimes makes you feel like you want to hibernate!!

Anyway, enjoy the pictures of our barn and pony loving girl!! Goodness she loves her Charlie!! By the way, Minnie has adjusted well to the new horses and is her usual loving self!!!

Another stormy day...

It's days like this that the countdown to our trip to the Dominican really starts in earnest!! This has been quite a funny January, with extreme highs and lows. Today's drive home brought unplowed roads and whiteouts..... I am so glad I don't work in the city anymore!!! Gord made it home safely too, although his drive home was slow.

We had a very uneventful weekend. Erin has a birthday party to go to this coming Saturday, so we went to pick out a present for her friend Kasey. That was it. It was great!!! I managed to catch up on a ridiculous amount of laundry and did a bit of tidying up. I think after working 6 straight days at the level I was working at caught up to me and so a lazy weekend was just what the doctor ordered!!

Erin is out right now helping Gord put the horses in. She is likely singing them to sleep as I type! It is really quite sweet to see her do this. I have gone out with them a few times, and each time she sings her little lullabyes, it brings a tear to my eye!

School continues to go well and she continues to love her teacher. Talk about bringing a tear to your eye.... you should see how excited she is when she comes home from school and pulls out the latest book she has learned to read. Little ones are truly amazing.

Erin has also really taken to her webkinz. I had no idea what these things were before Christmas, but she really needed Santa to bring her one. Now she has 3 - she chose to spend some Christmas money on one and the third was a special gift for doing a bunch of great things around the house. They are all ponies (of course) and with some snazzy tips Emma gave her, she is just a pro moving around webkinz.com. Little ones are truly amazing.....

Poof... it's the middle of January

Just like that it's the 14th of January.....

At least it's snowing outside. It's hard to believe that with all the snow we had before and during the Christmas holidays, that in one short week all of it went away. It was quite strange to see double digit temperatures in January without a minus sign in front of them!!

The week began with the uncharacteristic running around that we did not have to do for two weeks. Erin was happy to be back to school though. I think she really missed her friends! It was also back to daycare, where again I think she was happy to play with her pals there too!!

Wednesday brought a ridiculous wind storm that destroyed Erin's trampoline (our fault for not storing it away for the winter) and believe it or not also knocked over her playstructure too. Fortunately the playstructure is salvagable, with only some brackets breaking and we will have to repair the slide. It could have been a lot worse though. We saw lots of houses and garages with trees toppled on them.

Friday I was planning on working from home while Erin was at school, but there was a freezing rain storm and I was feeling under the weather, so Erin and I stayed home. She took very good care of me too!!!

The weekend was pretty quiet with the exception of Sunday evening when we went to the hockey game. Gord's boss gave him 3 tickets to the Senators game, so Erin went to see her first hockey game - although she has seen them in the skills competition. She thought it was pretty cool. We only stayed until the mid point of the 2nd period but she had a ball. I think it likely had something to do with the hotdog, the ice cream, and best of all, the cotton candy!!!!

So it was back to work today - well, I was actually at work for a while on Sunday too - and back to our routine again. I have really decided that I am enjoying not having nothing to do on the weekends!!!

Until next time.....

Holiday Fun

It's Saturday morning and our holidays are quickly coming to an end. We have the weekend of course, but our return to our regular routines is imminent.

We have had a fun past few days, with Richinda and I engaging in reciprocal daycare!! I had to go in to work on Wednesday morning so the girls had fun over at Richinda's. Thursday was spent here at our house. We had a nice breakfast and the girls played adventure photographer for the day. I won't even get into all of the things they took pictures of, but imagine a few girls with big imaginations and I'm sure you can conjure up images of the wild animals they found on their adventure!!! We also went to see the movie 'Alvin and the Chipmunks'. It was pretty cute. The girls had some big laughs and all were happy when we left, so it was a good time. We did some crafts as well - check out their masterpieces!!!

Friday I had to work again, so Erin hung out with the girls again at their place. Another great day by all accounts was had!

So it's Saturday. Erin and I are planning on getting haircuts today. The only other thing I have to do is to get some groceries, but I think that will wait until tomorrow. I also have to dig out her school backpack and get that ready to go for Monday. I reminded Erin she is going back to school on Monday and she looked at me like I had three heads. I think that means she has enjoyed herself this holiday!

Happy New Year!!!

Welcome 2008! Wow, how the time flies! So a new year has started all over again. We have changed calendars and have set resolutions and hope for a great 2008!

We spent the last couple of days of 2007 having more fun! Jo, Chris, Aidan, and Cole came over for a mini-Christmas celebration on Sunday. We had some good drinks, good food, and the kids had fun sliding and watching Shrek the Third! I was having technical difficulties with the camera that day, so I'll post some pics of the day once I get them from Jo!!

New Year's Eve day was spent playing with Erin's Webkinz. She got one for Christmas from Santa - a pony who she immediately named Charlie - and she desperately wanted another one, so with her Christmas money, I took her out to pick one out. She picked another pony (same as the one Erika got from Santa!!!) who she named Blackie. They are quite the thing, complete with online adoption, their own rooms, ways to earn 'money' to buy things.... on the other hand, Erin is getting quite adept at using the computer now!!! I also went to work at taking down all of the Christmas decorations. I finished everything but the top 3rd of the tree - even with a chair it's a stretch for me to handle the top part of a 13 foot tree!!! We were invited to Richinda and Jamies' for dinner that night, so off we went. Great food, good wine, and lots of laughs were on tap for the evening! We left sometime around 9:15pm when Erin proclaimed that she was tired and wanted to go home. Of course she didn't actually get to bed until a little after 10:00pm!! Gord and I made it to midnight to bring in the new year. Erin decided to wake up early this morning, much to my displeasure (haha), but she did let me nod off on the couch along with turing a kids show on - yup, sometimes TV is a babysitter for me!!!

Today we were greeted with a snowstorm. We had made plans to have Emma and Erika over to slide. Of course we had to re-create the sliding hill!! The weather forcast was a bit off, saying up to 5cms of snow... we had that by 10:00am!!! They came over at 3:00pm and we managed to slide for about an hour, but my goodness the wind was nasty!!!

Although I am still on holidays until Monday, I unfortunately have to go into work tomorrow morning and Friday afternoon. Erin is going to spend these times with Emma and Erika, so she is in heaven about that!! On Thursday Richinda has to work, so we will have the girls over for the day. We are going to go into Brockville to see a movie - Alvin and the Chipmunks (everything has gone retro!!) - so that should be fun. We have nothing going on this coming weekend. That is wonderful!! I have to start getting Erin back in her normal routine as we head back to our regular schedules!!

As I reflect back on 2007, it was definitely a year of ups and downs. We had a great trip to Cuba back in February, a fun Easter egg hunt with lots of friends, and a great trip to Canada's Wonderland. We celebrated Erin turning 4 years old and saw our baby go off to school shortly after her birthday in September. Of course we had some downs over the year, with Gord's family losing both Jean and Lloyd in such a short period of time. There were also the trials and tribulations too complicated to get into here, but for all of the downs I truly believe we become stronger people. We had loads of play time with good friends and family all year, leading to the big event that just passed us by - Christmas! All in all, despite the challenges 2007 brought to our lives, it was filled with many special times and memories we will always cherish.

On this first day of 2008 I can only wonder what the year holds. Erin has started her countdown to the next holiday - Valentine's Day - and Gord and I are looking forward to our upcoming trip to Dominican, especially under all of this snow!!! We are also looking forward to our continuing basement renovations and making a nice playroom for Erin! When the warm weather arrives, we look forward to working outside to finish off the pool, and to of course get lots of use in it!! We are looking at options for a summer vacation with Jo and Chris and the kids, as well as a trip down to a waterpark in Jamaica with Richinda and Jamie and the kids! We also now have a nice option to use the villa North Bay Grampa recently purchased in Florida! We have plans to head down during Christmas holidays later this year and spend a few days at Disney World - this is a gift we told Erin we would give her when she turned 5. She turns 5 in 2008 - can you believe it?!!!

Happy New Year to you and yours. I hope the year holds wonderful memories for all of you.

Erin playing with her online Webkinz - check out the tongue!!!!