Park It!

Woohoo! A day without precipitation!!! We were able to go to playgroup outside today & the kids had a blast at the park with their friends. We had some added bonuses too! Tulip came and so did Boo and as if that wasn't fun enough, my good friend Koas came to hang out with us. Sweetie is completely wild about Koas and she just grinned ear to ear when she saw her arrive!
Koas in hot pursuit of runaway children!Koas mentioned today that she wishes she could get rid of her braces, (she's had them for 6-7 years, ouch!) so I thought I'd indulge her, if only digitally!

Koas is camera crazy so I actually get to appear on the blog today!

5 kids, one skinny ladder=trouble!

We hijacked Boo's sitter, sorry Teena!

Koas & Sweetie, doing underducks.

Could she be any happier???????
Good friends, good times!
Hey is that ME again???????? : )))

A Perfect Ten!

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary on the weekend! Ten years, wow! hard to believe that much time has gone by but I hear it flies when you're having fun! ;)))) Murray's parents got their first crack at having a sleepover & kept the kids for the weekend. It started out a little rocky when Lovey got overtired on the trip down and then spent the rest of the drive crying, begging and pleading to please please please take her home so she could sleep in her bed. This continued after we arrived and then throughout the night but the next day she was fine & the 2 nights they spent at Nanny & Grampy's went without incident, or at least, without full tilt screaming hysterics.

The kids had a blast helping Nanny clean out the attic and playing with all the old toys she's kept there for years. They also got into their Great Nana's jewelry which would have been any girl's delight!

For our part, we had an enjoyable weekend of quiet togetherness! We did some canoeing, some biking & jogging (I biked to keep up with that freakin' runner!) & we stayed at a b&b that had awesome food and a cozy room to crash in. The second night we went in to the city and did some shopping, more eating and we wandered around downtown checking out the action there and caught a comedy show in the evening that was really good. It was pretty weird to be so carefree for such an extended period of time! Usually if the kids go to my mum's, there's something to work on at home so it's not quite as leisurely as this. I enjoyed it but it didn't feel quite real! Being free of responsibility is now a foreign concept to us I guess! BUT I'm sure we could get better at it, given the opportunity....

Murray calls this his "urban attitude". I think I've burned out another model!

Super Models R Us

do these girls have it or what? Seeing as it's mostly relatives that read this, I expect the answer to be pretty much a unanimous YES! : )))
wow, another good one! that's 2 out of 3, now if I could just get....
nope. our cool dude won't look, smile or sit still. Bribery may be needed here.

We were out for a walk last week & I got decent pictures of almost everybody, except the girl who's too busy of course! That one's always tricky. I want to update the individual pictures I have in the living room that I did last year in their Hines dresses. I've been working on them, pointing out that those are OLD pictures and I need NEW pictures of my four year old girls now. They seem agreeable until we actually get outside with the camera, then it's run away from Mumma time. Here they're feeding the "ducks" with the "food" they ripped off the trees on the side of the road. Environmentally friendly, that's us.

Lovey is our pokey little puppy, and has often declared: "I like to be slow!" Great that she likes to set her own pace but man is it hard to take a walk with her lagging along behind. She had a great time walking her "dog" though!and then there's Zippy! note: neither foot is actually touching the ground!

more of the "Bunny Sisters" in action.
we were almost all the way home without incident when Honey took a tumble on the pavement and required drastic medical attention for the scraped knee. Luckily we have this cold gel pack head wrap thing that is supposed to be for feverish babies. We use it mostly for bumps & scrapes, it seems to take the ouch out quickly! She walked around with this on her leg most of the afternoon. Whatever works!

Sweetie & Lovey were supposed to be sharing this popsicle. Honey had balked at the idea of sharing the only popsicle we had and opted for a different snack instead. However, she seems to have wormed her way back in to the sharing. Poor Sweetie can't get a lick in edgewise!

and then a little pool time to finish off the hot afternoon (one of the few days we didn't have rain last week!)

We are dive stick masters now! They can all scoop them up easily so I have to remind them, 2 each, put that extra one back for your sisters!!!!!! However, there's always somebody still trying to hog more!

more of my "practicing the focus" sessions. Sometimes I get it but it's still not 100%. Not sure if that's quite attainable but I'd like to get over 50/50 at least!!!

hoooooooooooo boy....

Well today was interesting! Honey neeeeeeeeeeded me pretty much all the time today. She had a rough night last night & is the newest member of the flu club & hopefully the last! Lovey's still got a bit of a fever and took a long nap this afternoon. Everyone got up late this morning which I really appreciated! The clinginess and whininess is a bit hard to take but you have to feel bad for them, they're so little & when they're sick they're just about pathetic looking with those sad faces & tired eyes. That didn't stop me fro bolting for the gym after supper though, I was ready for some time away from home! They just want to be held all the time when they're not feeling well and even Sweetie who is all better now, was eyeing me as she walked into the living room while I was holding Honey in the rocking chair. I could tell she was about to stir up trouble so I quickly told her that Honey was going back to bed soon & I'd rock her before I left. That nipped that in the bud. Whatever trouble she was cooking up never materialized but the glint of it in her eye scared the crap out of me. lol

Not getting much done around here but I did manage to disinfect the kitchen & bathroom, in hopes of sanitizing our way back to health! and for sugary medicinal purposes, I baked a chocolate cake with fudge icing. It was much needed & I got a "woohoo" from Murray when he got home.

No new pictures today, we never made it outside but a few wedding ones for Aunt Cathy! (perhaps she'll leave a comment if she LIKES ANY *cough*cough*) I'm still working on proofing the rest but here are a few more for now! More to come but it's slow going this week :S

Bored Kids? Just add water!

I was determined to get OUT of the house today. We used to go out for walks regularly & with all the wet weather, we've gotten out of the habit. So today, around 10:30am, I told them we were going to hit the road! At 11:20 my foot actually touched some pavement. (better late than never?) Lovey wasn't feeling up to running around so we used the stroller & she stayed in the entire time (not a good sign!) Sweetie & Honey were the "Bunny Sisters" and scampered along happily. We went down to the main road & stopped to look at a garden at an old house on our street. The girls were picking some clover flowers when the caretaker that helps out the elderly man who lives there, came out. I quickly told her they were just picking stuff out of the grass but she said it was fine if they wanted to take some out of the flower beds so I let them have one thing each. Big score, woohoo!!!

It was drizzling here & there so we'd brought their umbrellas and they were in heaven! They skipped & hopped along, running and racing while Lovey watched from her seat. She seemed a bit chilled (next bad sign) so I covered her legs with a sweater and that seemed to help her. When we got home she went to bed for an hour (the clincher. that girl is sick!)


Sweetie & Honey had some lunch, spaghetti and meatballs out of a can. Sweetie gobbled it up & Honey ate most of hers without complaining so based on the mealtime fights lately, it was a raging success (much to Murray's disgust! lol). After lunch it really started to pour so we ran for the umbrellas & rubber boots and went in the driveway where they tried to catch drops on their tongue and just ran around enjoying the splatting raindrops on their lady bug-brellas. They were sooooo happy.

Lovey woke up while we were out there & we could hear her calling to us out the open window so we came in to see her but she didn't feel up to doing much. We put together some puzzles, a nice quiet activity and she ate a few crackers, had some water & then went back to bed til supper time. Before she crashed, I took her temp and it was over 101 so I dosed her up! Sweetie seems to have recovered from her bout with the flu over the weekend so hopefully Lovey will finish up tomorrow & Honey will either skip it entirely (is that too much to ask??) or go down in the next day or so & we can get this over with & out of here! (I'm being optimistic that Murray & I will avoid the whole thing, call me greedy!)

lots of pics today, after a session with one of Murray's coworkers (& family), I realize I REALLy need to master flipping around my focus points (I can choose to focus dead centre or a bunch of other spots on the frame by using my arrows on the back to slide the red dot around) Cool feature & when I nail it, it's awesome & incredibly handy, it just needs some work. So I was trying to whip around those points today, some were hits some were misses. (keep in mind, at least 2 moving targets at all times who often move faster than my 4th child can focus). Anyway, of all the ones today, this last one is my FAVE. Not sure if it's noticeable on this websized version but you can see the raindrops she's trying to catch and everything. Such a perfect moment of childhood!