scrapbooking and family life

So since my last post was in November for Monkey #2’s birthday I am going to start with now and work my way back. This may be long but I really want to keep track and I am going to try and keep my posts more often. Ryland was thankfully healthy enough to start his ball Hockey season, He is loving it. Family day long weekend this year sucked. Monkey 1 came down with a fever on Thursday and has been sick since. The nice child decided to give his cold to his dad and I as well. Luckily his brothers don’t seem to have it yet. (knock on wood). I have to say I have not had such a painful cough in a long time and I really feel sorry for Monkey 1 since I know how he has been feeling. The poor kid always seems to get sick when he has a school holiday, he had a 5 day weekend and we were not able to take advantage of it at all.

 Pajama days and Nintendo is a cure all 

Other then this February has been good to us. We have had lovely weather and were able to take the boys skating last weekend. Holden even went skating for the first time ever and he loved it. Tristan has come a long way too. We have only been skating 3 times this year and his confidence level has skyrocketed. We borrowed a push bar for him this time and what a difference that made. Before to long he was pushing it away from himself and skating to it. It was all his idea too. Ryland too has improved so much. It is amazing to see just what getting out there and skating does for them. I can only imagine how much better he will get each time. To bad lessons are so expensive, they would love them.

Holden and his daddy, his first time on skates

• he thought it was pretty fun

 Tristan and his growing confidence, so proud of him

 Ryland doing his thing and getting back up each time that he fell down and keep going

Doing so well

I don’t know what the weather people were thinking when they said this would be a extra cold winter this year. I have never seen such a mild winter. We have had more plus temperatures then we have had minus. We had a playdate at the park on the 3^rd with the 3 Garofalo and 2 Osmond boys. Let me tell you 8 boys ages ranging from 2 to 7 = fun times. I don’t know what it is with boys but they seem to love to pile up on each other, at least once they could find a place with no rabbit poop on the ground. Thank you Nate for pointing that out to the other boys, it was very helpful and saved my washing machine

4 boys I believe poor Nate was on the bottom

January 2012

January as usual is a very busy month Ryland celebrated his 7^th Birthday. He wanted to have a Lego Star wars Vs Transformers birthday. That made for some brainstorming for his birthday cake I tell you. Richard and I were up until 1 in the morning the night before his party finishing it, but I think it turned out well. He loved it which is the most important thing. The bottom level was the Lego level, Very proud of Richard for making such awesome Lego bricks. The middle layer was the transformer layer and I made the gears. They didn’t turn out as silver as I had hoped but I was still happy with it. The top layer was the Star Wars layer, it was not easy cutting out the letters but they work. Richard went out the morning of the party and bought a Lego Optimus Prime and it added just the right touch. Then add on some Lego figures, set a ship beside it and voila! It is done.

 The cake at the party and little brother helping to blow out the candles

 This is what happens when everyone wants to see the presents and you keep telling them to sit back but eventually they just can’t help themselves

this is what you get when you open a really cool present and mom can't get a picture of it

This was on Ryland’s actual Birthday,  There wasn’t all that much cake left after the party but he loved it anyway

Mr Holden also had a birthday this month. 3 days before Big brother Ryland as it so happens. You can imagine we are pretty caked out in January. Holden loves “McQueen” So it was a no brainer what his cake was going to be. Lightning McQueen, with the super cool blue and yellow “zebra” cake inside Thank you Aunty Allison for that fantastic idea.

doesn’t this look cool!!!

Needless to say he loved his cake and was super excited to have it. I can’t believe he is 2 already, wow the last 2 years flew by. We celebrated his birthday at Kelsey’s and that turned out to be a great idea since they had a balloon animal guy there.

 Holden got a balloon birthday hat. Tristan got a frog Ryland got a cat

 Earlier in the month we had a skating outing at the lake with the Garofalo family. The boys had fun sitting by the fire. Holden and Seth hung out in the stroller while the bigger boys were skating. After that was done they all climbed and played on the snow pile.  Here are a few pictures from that day

Nate, Reid and Ryland enjoying the fire

Tristan playing goal

My 3 boys climbing a snow pile

The start of the month was fantastic. Fred and Mary came out at the end of December for a little over a week and they kept the boys overnight while Richard and I enjoyed a night in Canmore at the Georgetown Inn. It was fantastic and the first time I have spent a night without kids in 7 years. We started off the day with some shopping in Calgary, and I found some great deals. Then we headed into Banff, (thank you Jessie and Jody Hill for the pass) We had a wonderful leisurely lunch at the Grizzly House Fondue restaurant. We went for the whole experience and had a 4 course meal. We started a very yummy salad with some kind of honey vinaigrette that was fantastic. Next came a to die for cheese fondue with bread, so good, and they gave us some roasted garlic to add to the cheese and wow was that even better. Next came out the main course, here we opted out of the fondue and went for the Hot stone cooking. 620 degree hot stone and it was fantastic, We had the seafood (lobster, shrimp and scallops) and the Alberta meats (beef, buffalo, elk, venison) So yummy, For Dessert we had Chocolate Fondue, Melted Toblerone and cream with fruit to dip, this was also so good.  now the pictures of the fondue place are still on my phone and i can’t find the cable, so those will come sometime in the future,  who know when really.  This is the Hotel we stayed at though

The Georgetown Inn

cool Jacuzzi tub

The Rocky Mountains

When we got back from our little holiday it was to be surprised by my parents. They had driven out from Manitoba to surprise me. Boy did they ever, I was quite happily shocked when I walked in the house and they came upstairs. I didn’t quite believe it. We had a wonderful visit and the boys were ecstatic to have all their grandparents here at the same time.  We got a great picture of my parents with the 3 boys

my parents with my boys

And I got a wonderful snapshot of my parents too

my mom and dad

December 2011

Now on to December, and I’m going to go backwards still. It’s easier to remember this way. Fred and Mary came out on the 28^thto spend new years with us and my awesome father in law made our littlest monkey his very own big boy bed. My wonderful mother in law is making him a quilt to go on it. I can’t wait to see how it looks, she is a very talented quilter.  They loved helping him put it together

Helping Grandpa Fred put the new bed together

 Look how little my monkey is having his first nap in his new bed

 They also brought with them our 2^nd Christmas. I tell you Holden is a present unwrapping professional. I swear it was his favorite thing. Holden opening his Thomas train

Grandpa Fred helping put together his garage.

 Ryland and Tristan were overjoyed when they opened their new 3DS. I don’t think they put them down for an hour. But they waited patiently while we set them up for them.

CHRISTMAS DAY

Our poor little Ryland came down with a fever on Christmas eve. This kid has the worst luck for getting sick. The only upside was that he had lots of new things to help keep him distracted from the fact he didn’t feel good. They were so spoiled, and I have to say, I am glad we could spoil them this year, Thank you Toys R Us for having everything I wanted for them on sale for half price, that really helped to stretch my budget out and get them a few more things.  We spent a nice morning opening presents. The first thing Ryland and Tristan did was pull the light sabers out of their stockings and have a little sword fight.

Ryland and Tristan Battling it out with their light sabers

They thought it was hilarious that our cat Pete pulled his cat toy out of his stocking himself. He loved it, played with it for 15 minutes straight I think.  Then there was Holden, who wasn’t quite as ready to wake up as his brothers were but he was guarding his loot very well. Ryland was excited to see that his bear got a Darth Vader Costume, Tristan’s was thrilled with his new Donkey Kong and Spiderman shirts, Holden loved his new Lightning McQueen, and was very responsible using his new toothbrush after every bite of chocolate.  Mom and Dad were happy with what we got too, Santa came through this year and got me a gypsy for my Cricut. Best thing ever. Daddy seemed quite happy with the new Mario shirt his boys picked out for him and his Alton Brown cookbook

Then uncle David came over to spend the day with us. The boys love it when he comes over and plays with them. He was also kind enough to take a family picture of us and to pose for a few as well.

I particularly like this one of him and Tristan

Then as a reward he was attacked with a light saber by Holden while the other two were busy playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii

Daddy and Uncle David took 4 hours to put together the Mario Kart K’nex set, boy this thing is huge but the boys love it, Tristan and Holden especially. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Forsyth. Holden loves to smash down the thawmps he finds it super fun.

Ryland got a 1000 piece Lego Atlantis set from Santa, This kid I tell you is so smart and can follow the directions to a T. He put the whole thing together himself in a little less then 4 hours, This kid is Lego Crazy, Earlier in the day he put together the Star Wars set that he got from Uncle David

Now you know what?  I think this will be it for my super long post.  I know there was more things to happen and more pictures taken but I think this was a good start to this years blog and I am determined to have a post every week from now on.  I hope you made it through and enjoyed.

so i’m about 9 days late in posting this, but i can’t believe that my oldest baby is 6.  I became a mommy for the 1st time January 2005.  He has changes my life entirely and for the better.  I can not imagine my life without this beautiful sweet little boy.  He is the most caring little boy and loves his brothers.  He takes such joy in the things he does.  He is looking like he will be a baseball lover just like his grandpa Roy and his uncle Kyle.  He is eager to start and it doesn’t start until May.  He does start Ball Hockey later this month though and he is very excited for that too.  We made him a Mario Birthday cake this year,  DH and I were so proud of it, and Monkey 1 loved it.  He spent about 10 minutes looking at all the details we put on it

How did it happen?  How did my little baby get to be 5 months old so fast?  Oh he brings me so much joy,  you forget how quick the baby days go by.  Monkey 1 and Monkey 2 are so big now and learning new things and demanding more thing and Monkey 3 is just there hanging out with all of us,  he is such a happy boy and is almost always smiling and he loves his jumperoo, i had to raise it up to level 2 today,  just another sign he is growing up to fast,  here he is at 5 months old

oh and did i mention that he is teething big time,  he is one massive mess of drool,  so time to break out the bibs,  i think i should go get some more cute ones though,  monkey 3 deserves to have some new things too, and with 2 older brothers he will have alot of hand me downs.  He is changing and learning more every day and has discovered his new favorite toy.  .   .  .  .  .  his toes!!!!!  He fell asleep in his swing while he was playing