Thursday, October 21, 2010

Updates on the kids

Well, we certainly have been keeping busy!  Between work, school, sports, lessons, birthdays and just everyday stuff, there hasn't been much time to give to the blog.  So I thought I would do a quick update on each of the kids, to let you know what they've been up to.  And it's been a lot!

DANIEL

  • Daniel is loving Kindergarten.  He is having so much fun, making so many new friends.  He is Mr. Popularity in his class, always being chosen to accompany kids to the office to take in the attendance, sitting at at a table full of girls at lunchtime.  His new best friend is Tyler, who is also on his soccer team.  It's also really fun having him at school with me.  He really likes hanging out in my classroom, helping me get stuff ready.  It's really neat being able to walk to school together and listening to his day.
  • Daniel is also really enjoying soccer.  He's not an aggressive player by any means.  In fact, if an opposing player gets the ball, Daniel just stands back and let's him have a turn!  But he looks good out there and you can't tell that he didn't play last year while the other boys did.
ADAM


  • Adam is getting quite the funny, quirky sense of humour.  He tells the funniest stories and has a really vivid imagination.  Now that he's not with Daniel all the time, he's been able to show his personality a bit more. 
  • He is so keen to learn new things these days.  Linda has been doing a preschool program with him at daycare and he is so excited about it.  He loves to write and draw.  He'll sit and draw cute little people for hours.  He can kind of spell his name now (he can say the letters but writes it as HOHM - his As don't join at the top and his D is a little round :)).  He also LOVES to count and will count everything around him - he even falls asleep counting!
  • Adam is doing really well in his swimming lessons.  No more parent and tot lessons for him - he's on his own!  He was a little nervous at first - always looking close to tears although never crying.  Now he's trying to blow bubbles under water and putting his mouth and nose in the water (not his eyes, though).  His teacher says he probably won't pass this session, but he's made huge improvements!
SARAH


  • Sarah is developing such a fun personality.  She is Little Miss Happy - very rarely do you see her without a smile on her face. 
  • Our little girl isn't so little anymore!  She's a chubby little thing!  Last doctor's appointment she weighed 22.5 pounds.  She goes again next week so we'll see if she's gained any more.
  • She is an expert walker now so she's graduated to climbing.  Watch out!  She loves to go up stairs or climb on top of boxes and stand up on them.  She's our little daredevil!
  • She also loves to get into mischief.  She gets into everything - baskets of laundry, piles of papers and especially the garbage can and the toilet.  If she sees the bathroom door is open, she runs at top speed to go play in the toilet!
  • Sarah is our little musician.  She loves dancing to music, especially her stuffed animals and dolls that play songs.  She claps her hands and bops to the beat - it's so cute!

Thanksgiving!

Family tradition - time to head up to the Okanagan for Thanksgiving!  Again, it was a quick trip full of lots of visiting and lots of food.  We took Daniel out of school at noon and headed out as soon as we were ready.  Unfortunately, it still took a long time to get there - long weekend traffic and construction around Hope didn't help.  But we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's around 9pm.  The boys were fast asleep but Sarah woke up as we arrived and visited for a bit.

Saturday morning was spent playing and working - the boys played and Grandpa and Uncle Duncan worked on installing a fan above the stove.  Fun!  Great-Grandma and Grandpa C came over for Thanksgiving dinner #1.  James and I popped over to their house to see all the work they've done on their kitchen - it looks great!  The kids had so much fun with the cool toys they brought - a helicopter and rescue truck for the boys and a cute singing cow for Sarah.  Dinner was delicious and it was so nice sitting down at the table with the entire family.



Sunday was, of course, the apple squish.  The boys were so excited!  They had so much fun picking apples, squishing apples, eating apples and making apple juice.  There was also roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, throwing apples for dogs to fetch, playing on tractors and running around the orchard.  Sarah had a great time wandering around the legs of everyone there, eating her first hot dog and munching on apples that kept falling in grass and dirt!  She looked so cute in her apple vest from Auntie Lauren and her fancy boots that bugged her a lot, since she couldn't move to well in them!



Dinner followed at the hall in Summerland - so much good food and yummy desserts!  There weren't many kids there this year - just our two and cousin Nicholas, plus some much older second/third cousins.  But the little ones (and Grandma and Grandpa!) had a lot of fun in the multipurpose room, playing soccer and riding on big exercise mats!  The kids weren't overly thrilled with Thanksgiving dinner but they had a good time anyway.  (We actually found a food that Sarah doesn't like - turkey.  It's probably only the third food I've found that she doesn't like!)  What a special tradition!  Grandma gave us our copy of Canadian Living magazine with an article about the apple squish back in 1986.  It was so fun (and funny!) to look back at everyone 25 years ago - what a souvenir to have!

Monday morning was spent eating french toast and packing up for the trip home.  The trip home was not one of our better ones - it took us almost 8 hours to get home!  We started out OK but got stuck at Hope - construction, accidents and bad traffic meant that it took us 3 hours from there!  We were a little late for dinner with Leah's family.  Luckily, they were nice enough to wait for us and we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner #3.  By the time we got home, though, we were exhausted!  We threw everything on the floor and collapsed right into bed.  :)