Mischief

This is what it is like living with 3 males!! As I am putting laundry on, Jeremy is feeding Darien chocolate cake - and ofcourse he didn't seem to mind and Connor was sitting there thinking it was the greatest thing too.


Darien was actually sleeping in his crib for once and I hear giggling on the monitor - this is what I find when I go upstairs.
And here is Connor's city that he constructed in Darien's room. He said that all the cars are the traffic because cities are really busy











Connor had his speech assessment on Tuesday and it went quite well. His perception and recognition is at a 9 year old level but his expressive language and grammar are behind. So we will be starting sessions to help him with this.

Jeremy's new job is going great. He is away from the house a lot more now and we are all adjusting. Hope everyone is doing well and has a great weekend!

Hello Everyone!

We've had a pretty busy summer all in all. Here are some fun pics:

In the first photo there is Michael, James and myself at the lake and in the next one, James thinks he is being pretty cool. The last one is of James & Michael when they were just little guys...it's one of my fave pics of them together.

4 months old!

Here are my happy boys! They are wearing the same pants in these pics - as you can see Connor was a little chubber when he turned 4 months old too. One thing Darien really takes after his big brother in is the drool department.

Why I can't get anything done

How can I leave him in there to make dinner with that face!!?? He just loves to be held lately and boy is he heavy (I'm guessing over 18lbs but will have to wait for his 4 month check-up)

And here is reason #2, this is how Connor dressed himself to go out and play in the rain. In this picture he has just informed me "I have had enough of your talking let's just go outside"
I just can't believe how big Ryan and Sean are now - I guess they wouldn't fit on Uncle Jeremy's knee anymore. Connor keeps asking to see the picture of them and yesterday he wanted to know how to spell their names.

We're jealous of your boat Amanda - we'll definitely have to get out next summer to go sailing. Connor loves the pictures of the birds. He wants to know which one is the one that said "hello" to him.

The Birds

We recently added a new addition to our house. A lady from Alex's work had a military macaw that she no longer could keep, so since we already have a macaw she asked Alex if we would like to take it from her. Alex picked him up last Friday. His name is Ceasar and he is only about 8 years old, considering that they live to about 80, he is still very young. Ceasar is very talented and already says a lot. We are still trying to figure out everything that his says. Every time the phone rings his does say hello. Ceasar seems to like blond females and not males, he lets me handle him, but not Alex yet. We still have our Amazon Bruno. I am not sure what we are going to do with him. We have separted Bruno, and Scooter & Ceasar are in the same cage. Scooter is the Blue & Gold Macaw and Ceasar is a Green with Red head Macaw. Bruno is Green and Yellow.

Sailing

Here are some pictures of us sailing on Saturday. It was a perfect day. The wind was low so we did not travel too fast, but it was very relaxing. Alex can't wait to go out again. We don't have much more of the season left. The boat (which we named Timberwolf) gets hauled out at the end of October. Only the girls came sailing with us. Noah decided that he did not want to go and spent the day with his mom instead. Our friend Garth came along with us for a mini voyage. Hannah seams to like it, the only thing that ticks her off is the life jacket, she will just have to get used to it.

Science World

We took the boys to Science World yesterday, Connor had a blast. Here he is putting a beach ball through a sideways hoop with air. We also saw the IMAX feature about bugs in the Rainforest. It was approx. 45 minutes long and Darien was enthralled with all the movement and sounds.

Connor made a friend - the circle they are sitting on is spinning and they are rolling the ball back and forth to each other.
It's a race! Daddy won - but mommy did it afterwards (with Darien strapped into the baby carrier I should add) and I am ashamed to announce that Connor beat me.
Launching parachutes
Petting a snake - with just his pinky finger.
Darien loved the colours in the ball and making them move with his hands. It's too bad they didn't show up in the pic. Ah, but nice to see my white bra showed through my tee.
A fire presentation. Connor helping daddy build the super coupe.

Came across this inspiring blog on a baby message board. About a micropreemie that was born at 23 weeks. I've been following it for almost a month now - the little guy was born on August 8th. It is amazing how resilient babies can be and makes you realize how lucky you are when everything goes as well as it has with our two.http://www.tinytruman.blogspot.com/

Here is Darien kind of laughing, he always stops when I pull out the camera. Hopefully it doesn't give anyone motion sickness!

As promised - more pics

Gratuitous bum shot


Here is Connor drinking some hot chocolate. He'll come up to us and say, "Feel my hands, aren't they cold? I think I need some hot chocoloate to warm them up." And we agree and make it for him - we are so well-trained.

Let's Ride!

Connor had a great week back at preschool which is a huge relief. I was getting a bit stressed about it because of how much he has been acting up at home. The teacher did recommend speech therapy again; Jeremy and I discussed it and have decided to have him go in for an assessment. He can say words fine when he slows down but most times his rate of speech is so fast that he slurs all his words toether into one long blur. From what I have read a speech pathologist can help him with this. It is also free right now, if we wait until he starts school we will have to pay for the service, not to the mention the fact that this way he will be entering school more prepared.

This morning Connor was riding his jeep and really wanted to give Darien a ride. He did really good and kept his arm on him the whole time.

Darien has found his voice and how loud he can be. Connor is going to have some competition! After Darien does an especially loud squeal he starts giggling - he loves it.

I have more pics to share but blogger is not playing nice - I'll try again later.

Tarzan

Here is Connor swinging on the willow tree.

Amanda - thanks for all the pics. I love the pattern matching I had going on - that plaid and stripes!! I can't believe how big all the kids are getting.

Connor goes to preschool today for an hour. He also has dance and music on Fridays now through the school. It will make this year's music concert interesting. Last year he didn't know any of the words because he only went 2 days a week (but it didn't stop him from singing though).

Back to School !!!

Here are a couple of pictures of the kids going back to school. I don't know what I am going to do. Most days they drove me crazy, but they also kept me company. It was a pretty lonely day. I think Hannah even missed having them around.

Ashley & Petra & Noah

Posting these for Amanda (following 3 posts)


We didn't have a digital camera when Ashely, Petra and Noah were small so I can not do any baby comparisons with them. I don't want them to feel left out so I will post some older pics of them. I can't believe that they are going back to school tomorrow already. The summer flew by. I feel like we didn't do that much, but with four kids you are limited with only one adult. I hope that the had a good summer anyways. I have really enjoyed them. They drove me crazy most days but they also kept me company. Hannah is going to miss them when they go back to school. No matter what they can always make her laugh. They will have to put time aside before homework every night for her.

Here are a couple if soccer pics. The girls pictures are from the summer and Noah's is from the winter. The girls have decided that they only want to play outdoor soccer, so I didn't sign them up for the winter. Noah has made the select team so he will play indoor soccer along with practice for the rep team in the winter.

Comparison

I was looking at some old photos of myself against some of Ashley's pictures. You can really see the resemblance. I wonder who Hannah will take after? Right now Hannah looks identical to her father so only time will tell.