Happy Canada Day!

Well, it's July, and that means it's high time I loaded the June pictures off of the cameras - hence the post. Summer vacation has started off well... meaning Rob and Brendan haven't throttled each other yet, but we've still got lots of time! Brendan strongly declines going to camp ("I just like playing at home"), but is also fairly bored at home since what he means is "I just like playing at home with the constant help of a grown up". Rob is working hard to keep up a steady diet of trips to town and playdates to entertain him. His new best friend, a neighbour in Grade 3 named Lily, is a real kindred spirit and they seem to be having a wonderful time together. They are bonded by their love of Zoobles, a small plastic ball that transforms into a creature. Huh. Parenting is all about learning new things, isn't it? Who knew his love of trains would be replaced by something so... plastic.

 

Brendan and his devoted mini me; Harrison

 

 

It was a very busy month for Brendan - he had a very unexpectedly formal Graduation from Junior Firefighters the day before his birthday party. He's pictured here shaking hands with the Township Reeve and receiving his certificate from the Fire Chief. Rob and I had shown up in jeans expecting hot dogs and cake. Oops!

 

 

Holy Name of Mary Graduating Kindergarten Class of 2013

 

Brendan's Kindergarten Graduation was very sweet. The kids had made handprint artwork, gave a Rose to their mothers and closed out the ceremony with a rousing performance of "Who Let The Dogs Out!"

 

 

Brendan's also been going to TBall every Monday night, and is sort of enjoying it. He seems much more interested compared to two years ago and is running after every ball, volunteering for more at bats instead of drawing in the sand quite so much etc etc. so it's all much more interesting!

 

 

OK, so this is why I love writing this blog. I often forget why we're so bloody tired all the time, it turns out this was a really busy month. Somehow you don't really realize it at the time, you just put your head down and push on through. It's not until you're sorting through 267 photos from a single month that you realize you're legitimately tired for a reason. Anyways, we also had a very memorable weekend wilderness camping with my niece, nephew and Brendan (my brother and his wife looked after the twins). We packed up everything we needed and hiked into their back forest to survive overnight. Problem was it rained. Sleeping in a fort made of branches and eating weenies roasted over a scratch built fire loses it's attraction in the rain. At least for Rob and I. Our nephew Wyatt was undeterred, and we ended up sleeping in a leaking tent eating hot dogs over a fire started with a candle in a tin bucket. We were close...

 

 

And finally, the birthday party pics. This is chronologically a little out of order, but when you see the cake our friend Heather made for Brendan you'll see why I wanted to save the best for last!

 

My niece keeps a close eye on the candy buffet

 

Juice Boxes covered with printed construction paper were drinks and decorations... I love efficiency!

 

Lego building circle. It started as a game where you built for 1 minute and then passed along your creation to the next person. Except that I'm crazy. No kindergartener wants to pass along their creation!!! The game dissolved rapidly into just kids building lego. Which was fine.

 

The cake!!

 

Completely made of fondant - Wow!

Total Genius!

 



 

Complete with a fondant sign!

 

So, a very busy, very Brendan dominated month by the looks of things. But wait! The babies, not to be outdone in all this excitement, have been stirring things up plenty at our house. After an absolutely blissful month of napping for 3 hours in the late morning, everything has fallen apart. Harrison learned how to climb out of his crib. Onto his head. 3 times. No more crib. Heidi had been working on it for some time, so we knew it was the end of cribs unless we wanted her to learn very quickly from Harrison and develop her own head injury. So no more cribs for either. It's been chaos. They run, they frolic, they play, they wrestle, they do everything except sleep when they're put down for naps now. For whatever reason sleeping is still fine. Except the night Harrison was crying "Heidi, Heidi". I went in to investigate and he had crawled over the rail into her bed where she lay fast asleep (sensible child) and was smacking her on the back, I presume trying to wake her up for a late night game of tag. So sleeping is ok, most nights, but napping is just not happening. We have tried every re arrangement of furniture possible and every configuration of our 18 foot fireplace gate possible to separate them, but they just figure out how to Houdini themselves around it. Our last resort is putting one down to nap in our room or the guest room, but there will be not a stitch of clothing left in the drawers by the end of the first "nap" I'm sure since they're both such keen "explorers".  Somethings gotta change, we can't on like this - with the no napping nonsense. By 5 oclock Heidi is falling asleep in her dinner, Harrison is literally walking into walls and Rob's usually unflappable personality is, well, flappable. Heaven help us!