A doozy.

This outfit makes me laugh so hard. It's a doozy all right.
He had been "riding" his bike and the kids take their bike riding safety very seriously.  He was wearing his flip flops but Tati told him he had to wear real shoes to ride his bike because, remember, we take our bike riding safety very seriously.  So she got him some socks that obviously must be pulled up as high as they go. Then he got off his bike and decided he was going to use a wrench on the rocks at the rock table and probably try pumping some air into the rocks as well with the bike pump.  I love this kid.  He is so funny and his personality is just becoming more and more alive.

Mother's Day!

Tati was so excited about Mother's Day this year.  For days before she was doing a count down and for weekends before she was drawing pictures and telling me not to look at them.  I also started to notice little things hidden around the house.  The morning of, she sent me on my very own scavenger hunt.

First I got this picture in a frame that she had drawn of us together.  Then I was instructed to open it up and look on the back for my clue.  Here's what I found. 


Mom I know your pregnet and look not so good But I still love _____.

cleu (find a colorful rock and flip it over to find the missing word) ___



In case you can't tell, it says "You". So she still loves me, even though I dont' look good. Phew.

Then I got a few other gifts.  Chloe made me 2 cards with poems. She also gave me a really sweet present: a watermelon ring pop. The reason it is so sweet is because watermelon is my favorite flavor for all candies. She had received that ring pop for Easter and she saved it for me and gave it to me for Mother's Day. Now that is love.


Me and Greg made some chocolate covered strawberries the night before. I pretty much think you should be forced to add roasted almonds to chocolate strawberries no matter what. Trust me, it should be a law.


 It was the best Mother's Day I have ever had. There was no fighting and no food prep for me on that day. We even were able to eat dinner at a friend's house so we didn't even have any dishes to do. It was a crazy hot day and just as a special present for me as I was sweating off, the clouds rolled in, the wind kicked up and we got some relief from the heat.

p.s.  Gavin had some bad diaper rash so he spent most of his day like this:

Puppy Water

This is for my brother, whose children also pretend to be dogs.  Do all kids do this?  Don't get me wrong, there are times when I think being a "puppy" is exceptionally annoying but there are also times when I think it is hilarious and cute.  I just love the way Gavin is lapping the water with his tongue.

Tati's Puppy name is Salmon or "Sammy" for short. Chloe is "Cinnamon" and Gavin hasn't really figured out the alternate name thing yet so he is just "Gavin Puppy" as opposed to normal Gavin the human or Gavin the boy.

Petunia.

It has been so windy lately.  The wind is blowing all kinds of allergens into my nose and all kinds of dirt and dust around our house.  We're sweaty and crusty feeling all the time.  Today we decided to pack a lunch and actually take advantage of the wind and go fly our kites.

Zeke is our tried and true kite.  Pretty much he'll get up any time and is a no brainer to keep him up.  Chloe is getting so much better at moving the string around and gaging when she needs to move closer or farther away.  She is also getting more brave at letting out the string. 

Our new kite is Petunia.  Petunia is much prettier with Zeke but she also more difficult to keep up.  She likes to twirl  and race around--which is very thrilling for the kids to watch--but she is also very likely to loop around and slam right to the ground.  So Tati is really stepping up her game at knowing how to launch.  We say:  1-2-3-LAUNCH!  Then the person holding the kite throws it up into the air.  So Tati was good at both launching and commanding the launch.

Gavin was just happy to run around between kites and get to hold some of the string.

His biggest struggle was keeping his pants up while he ran.  Ha, ha.


He also really enjoyed looking for bugs.  He is so cute and growing up so fast.  He studies the bug and tries to softly touch it and hold it and then you look away and the bug is dead, smashed and he's either asking for a kleenex to wipe the guts or has already wiped the guts on his clothes.  Gross.

Bullseye Baby!

We've been counting down Target opening ever since we found out that Target bought out all the Zellars stores and was finally crossing the border here to Canada.  We had heard rumors of the buy out when we first moved here and just always assumed that in the 5 years that were projected for the stores to arrive, we'd already be gone.  Ha, ha on us. 

Greg said that since we waited so long for it to happen, both he and Chloe would ditch school so we could be there right when it opened at 8.  It was super fun to go together on the big day! There was a funny old lady that was talking to her friend a bit disappointed: "I thought I would get a present at the door." I was hoping for a free gift too.

I'm not saying that it wasn't awesome, because it was.  It just was a bit of a disappointment too.  Our store is really small and has a very limited stock of things.  I was all jazzed to hit up the maternity section, for example, and there were 2 t-shirts, two dress choices, 2 pants choices and one skirt.  And none of the styles worked on me or were what I needed.  I guess we also expected that all the things we haven't been able to get from the US would magically appear but mostly, they didn't.  We've heard rumors that some of the other stores in town are much bigger--one of them even 2 story--so I guess we just need to make a special trip to check it out.  

The best part of this store opening is that it is literally just walking distance away and in one trip we can ride the escalator at Sears, go to $Dollarama, go to Target and then finish up our walk home by stopping by the library.  What more can we ask for?  Well, I guess I can ask for a larger maternity section.  ;-)

Science Center

Once upon a time when I was a teenager, our family went to San Francisco.  I can't remember the reason for our trip or where all we went on that trip, but I do remember going to the Science Center there, the Exploratorium.  The thing that always stood out in my mind from that trip was watching somebody cutting open a cow's eye.  At the time I remember it being both disgusting and cool to see.

This Christmas, some of our nice friends bought us a trip to the Science Center here.   We just never seemed to find a time when we could all go together.  We were starting to feel like we were never going to make it there and the kids kept asking so we finally planned our trip.  We chose this particular day because one of the activities listed was watching the dissection of an animal eye.  I knew the kids would both love it and never forget it.

There were so many fun things to see and do there.  It was awesome.

I had fun showing Gavin some fish. It dawned on me by his excitement that he's never really seen salt water fish before--except for on t.v. Kind of sad. He loved the anemone and the clown fish--of course.

Gavin went crazy in the kid section because there was a whole airline display. He could fly the plane and push a bunch of buttons that made a bunch of noises and made lights flash. You could also push around luggage carts and put things through a pretend x-ray conveyer belt. He was pretty cute there.  After a while he even shared the driving duties with Tati.  That just proves how much he loves his big sis.

Chloe and Tati loved the water table section. There were balls and water and fountains and mazes for the balls to flow into. There was even a ball whirlpool. It was every kids splashy dream come true.

Tati enjoyed played with all the static and magnetic stations. She also really loved charging a rocket and launching it.

Chloe loved the astronaut display and pretending she was in space. And I love the way Tati was holding her hand while she was on the moon.

We went outside and had a super fun picnic and it was sunny and bright and beautiful outside. Then it was time for the main event, the eye.

(Warning Marnie, you might want to skip the following pictures)

Since Gavin wasn't into any of it, I took him back to the airplane section and the girls stayed back with Greg and saw a cow brain, a kidney and some slides of other internal organs.
This would be a great place to buy a season pass to but it is quite pricey. Hopefully wherever we end up will have a Science Center and we can buy a membership there. The kids would love to go and even just play with the water table and balls again.

At the end of the day, we asked the kids what their favorite part was. Gavin loved the airplane, Chloe said she loved watching the eyeball and Tati said her favorite part was seeing the cow brain. So I was glad we went on that demo day.

Earwax is Yucky.

 I have some problems with a bit of OCD.  Not in everything and not enough to validate medication or anything but I HATE long nails.  And I HATE ear wax.  Now my kids have just learned that a part of their life is getting their nails trimmed every Saturday night (And now Chloe trims her own nails since I gave her and her friend a little nail class as part of their birthday presents!  Woo-hoo!) and they also know that every so often, I have to do an ear check and if I see ear wax, I will be grabbing a Q-tip and taking care of it.

Now let's be clear, I understand that there is a lot of contraversy surrounding the removal of ear wax.  In fact, my childrens' pediatrician likes to tell the kids that nothing smaller than an elbow is ever allowed to be stuck in their ears.  And while I know he's trying to be funny and is trying to teach me to be safe,  I also know that I completely am going to disregard him.

• I've been cleaning ears for years.  Mostly my own and I know how to stay shallow and be safe.
• Nobody wants yellow wax dripping out of their ears.
• I never do it unless they have just showered or bathed and have the wax be all soft.
• I only do it if it is visible from the side.

So recently Gavin's turn was up.  He's a bit more squirrely so I do need to be more careful and more shallow.  I had Greg help hold his head this time a bit.  I went in with the q-tip and took a quick and shallow swipe and just as I was about to move onto the next ear, he started gagging and coughing.  I was so confused.  Greg then says to me,

"That is what happens to me when something goes in my ear too far too."

I just sat there both feeling super confused and on the verge of hysterical laughter.  I said, "What?!"  That is THE weirdest thing I've ever heard before.  Have you ever heard of something so bizarre?

So I guess Gavin inherited a weird gagging function from Greg.  Also, that picture is from one of my kids' favorite books:  Yummy Yucky, by Leslie Petricelli