Merry CHRISTmas Everyone!

I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to all of you EARLY this year! Todd and I are finding that December's calander just gets so full so fast that sometimes important things get forgotten. I'm sure yours does as well, so I thought that maybe you could use a little Merry Christmas right now! Isn't December nuts? It gets so full of trying to find time to do "special things" with the kids, the decorations, the concerts, the parties, not to mention all the list making, shopping and wrapping you have to accomplish!!! I'm trying to make my list, but it doesn't seem to be going so smoothly this year! LOL


I started my holiday festivities with a trip over to Frankenmuth, MI with Heather and our very favourite thing there was their play on how important it is to remember that this HOLIDAY SEASON comes for a very good reason and our society has come to forget that! All of this STUFF can easily cloud our real vision of the holiday! When we went to Broner's Christmas store (holy moly, 27 acres of Christmas stuff....totally amazing!) they sold a gold "cause" ribbon that states simply "Just say Merry CHRISTmas!" We laughed so hard at that!! It's so true! Forget all this stuff about "Happy Holidays!" or "Season's Greetings!" NONE OF US would have this time off school or work, had it not been for Jesus' birth!!! My new favourite Christina children's band is a group called "Go Fish" and they sing a song called "Christmas with a Capital C" and I love this song soooo much (look it up online, it's everywhere. Try this link on youtube, some of the graphics aren't things I necessarily agree with, but the song is awesome.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJxQhfeU3I0 ), listen to that song and see what things stick out in your mind! It's a very funny song! (there is one line I don't agree with, but overall, the song is great, so is their other music for kids, they have a song called "Jammie Time" that my kids LOVE! Check them out at www.gofishguys.com Their tag line cracks me up "Great music for kids that won't drive the parents BONKERS! Haha!!!) So the way I see it, is lets us as Christians celebrate our holiday and be proud to express it! So in this time of preparing, I challenge each of you out there to wish EVERYONE a "Merry CHRISTmas!", let's not forget why we really have all this "fun" stuff to do!


Yeah I know, this sounds a bit like a sermon (I suppose I just have been listening well lately! LOL), but it honestly is what keeps coming up for me this CHRISTmas season! So I thought I'd be one of the first to wish you all a very Merry CHRISTmas!!! Enjoy it! All of it! Every little piece of torn up paper that represented hours of wrapping, every single shove in lines for those 'oh so importnant toys, they MUST HAVE or they'll die!' (hehe!), and most importantly every one of the smiles and hugs your kids will give you when they realize that they are loved soooo much!!!



MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and your family from the Beneteau family!!!

Halloween at the Beneteau's

Hi Everyone,

It's past Halloween now, but I'm just getting to posting our pictures now. This was the very first year that we didn't have all of our boys going as complementing costumes, it was kind of a bummer to me, but we did come up with some awesome ideas, just nothing 9 year old and a 6 year old boys would agree too!! LOL I thought it was be awesome for them to go as a Rock, Paper, Scissors Championshiop, since that was what they were always so excited about with camp, but alas, noone wanted to be the ROCK! Hahaha!!! Todd's fav idea was for the three boys to go as "Loose Change" and make each one a quarter, dime and a nickel. Then his theory was that we'd make a statement when someone asked us where the penny was, we'd just say we decided to cancel the Canadian penny! hehe!!! However, I didn't really want to make another statement with our costumes this year and more importantly didn't want to go as a PIGgy Bank when I'm working so hard at dieting!!! LOLOLOL!!!!

Anyway, the boys' picked out their own costumes again this year and they decided to go as iPods. The costumes turned out great and I sure wish I would have video taped it to show you, because we even hooked up our two little shuffle ipods to speakers and attached them to the costume so it was playing music the whole night. That part was amazing, they were so cute! Then what to do with little Luke....Todd suggested he could go as the Shuffle, but I wasn't so sure. :-) We ended up going with him in a little frog suit, with a crown on his head and a sign on his chest that said "Prince Charming - Kisses 25 cents"! He was too cute!!! He loved his costume so much, when I put it on him, he just began to strut his stuff around the culdesac....too cute! The only part he hated was the actual Kissing Booth I made for him to stand in (and us to hold over him), he must have thought he'd loose his mobility or something, it was so funny! He'd scream with it on and laugh hysterically when he was free in his frog suit....so we adjusted the costume and moved on without the booth!!! Whatever works when you're 1!!!

The boys had a great time, it was a little weird trick-or-treating in the daylight to do our street, but we had to start by 5:30 in order to get to Baby Nick's house and then over to Aunt Vicky and Uncle Kevin's. That's where we have our Trick-or-treating party each year. It was fun to see Bailey in his little Pumpkin costume. If Vicky emails one to me, I'll post it here too. He was very cute and the boys absolutely love to play with him....they treat him like he really is their real baby cousin! LOL

So here are a couple of pictures, but I am working on putting a link on here to all of our pics, some of them just cracked me up, especially Luke's face when he first discovers that Halloween and putting this silly costume on meant getting candy dropped into his bucket!! I wished I could have frozen that look on his face into my memory forever! He was too cute!

I'm hoping that this link works so that you can click on it to see a short slideshow of the rest of our Halloween night!

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I absolutely had to show you what my sister dressed up as this year! It totally cracked me up....I'm so glad she did it, cause it was hysterical. Although she wouldn't wear the sign out trick-or-treating because she was afraid of offending someone! Great idea Brooke!

And then Tori went as an angel. She was too cute! She made sure Luke was taken care of and when Luke wasn't with her, she chased after the big boys!


So they went as a Devil, and Angel and God! I was proud of that theme costume idea! Good job Brooke!

Posting an update, as per request of being "sick" of the piano pics!!! LOL

(***Editing Note*** First of all I'd like to say that this blog is totally acting up on me! I can't seem to get it to do what I want and the pics are all weird shapes and sizes, sorry about that, I'll read up on what I did wrong and next time I post, hopefully it'll go a bit smoother.)

Well....as for the kids, there's not a terrible lot to post. Joshua and Jacob have seemed to settle well into their new school. Jacob REALLY loves his new teacher....he got a boy teacher and exclaimed to us the first night of school "Mommy, Mommy, I prayed and prayed that God would send me a boy teacher and HE DID!!!" That was so cute.

Joshua has a lovely teacher as well, Mrs. Doberich, he remembers her name by saying "Do be rich!" seems to make him laugh...he's such an entrepreneur already, isn't he? Anyway, he's making lots of friends, mostly with Grade 5 boys though, because of his friend from church, Ben, who is one year older than him. Josh is in a 4/5 split class, which doesn't thrill me, but we had that choice or a 3/4 split as they didn't have enough students in the English track to make a full Grade 4....the only part of switching them from the private school that I've been totally sad about is that he got put into a portable in a BRAND NEW Billion$$ school building....that part really sucked....but I trust the principal there, I really like him, he's a Christian and has very good values....so we'll see where the year takes us. His teacher has already started sending notes home about his inability to pay attention fully, so I know something is up, but it remains to be seen where it takes us this time around. That is my number 1 prayer for Josh this year, that we can find a way, HIS way of learning and make his schooling experience what he needs it to be so that he enjoys school again...he's not enjoyed it since Grade 1....oh for Mrs. Johnson to be back again!!! LOL She was amazing!

Lucas is growing and growing and growing....out of every last pair of shoes we own for him....so that's what I'm off to do sometime today....get the boy another pair of shoes....he's 16 months old and I'll be buying him a size 6 shoe!!! Crazy! Although, if he continues like his brothers did, this fact should NEVER surprise me! Joshua is almost 9 years old and he's wearing a men's size 7 shoe and Jake just turned 6 and is wearing a boy's size 4.....!!! Big feet in my family! One day, they'll eat us out of house and home, but for now, thank God that's not a problem! LOL Up at the top, you'll find a very funny picture of him "signing" his little heart out....oh for video of this! It was so funny listening to him humming his song and bopping is butt up and down, dancing away! Too cute!!!

I just got home from a MOPS Convention in Orlando, FL and had the time of my life!!! It is the 3rd convention I've been to (2 of the others were held in Nashville, TN) and this one seemed to really develope my Christian characteristics and leadership skills to a whole other level. I really had so much fun! We were so blessed to be able to bring 12 ladies in leadership from our MOPS group, we had 6 steering members, 3 mentor moms and 3 table leaders. The part I truly enjoyed the most was watching the women of this group, that have not yet been to an International event, see the impact that MOPS is making on the world. MOPS has a new tag line to go along with their new logo this year and it's "Better Moms Make a Better World"!!! Isn't that so true??? Society as a whole do not understand fully the impact that Moms have on this world as a whole.....in our homes, in our children's hearts, on our planet as a whole! Better Moms truly do make a Better World!!! This tag line will forever stand out in my mind! It's not to diminish the importance of Dads, they too make a world of difference, but when we focus on the Mom's of the world as a mission, we see the good and amazing work that God is doing in so many millions of families! Can you tell I'm totally pumped up for MOPS again? It truly is an amazing network of women, strong women, women from every walk of life and faith and background. It doesn't matter if you are a working mom, stay at home mom, single, married, teen, adopted, whatever your race or ethnic background, MOPS has a place for you! My prayer is that God works hard in Canada this year, to spread the wonderful word of MOPS throughout our wonderful country! There is no reason that with the size of Canada, we are stuck at less than a 100 MOPS groups around....and they are mostly just in BC and Ontario. There are so many families out there that could benefit from this amazing group! If you ever wanted more information about this group go to this website and you can find out about it's history, it's mission and how to get a MOPS group started in your area.... http://www.mops.org/

Ok, now that I made a big deal about MOPS, I'd love to show you some currect pics...(however, I can't seem to get the blog to behave properly, so all of the pics are up at the top! Sorry about that!)

The funniest of them all is this weekend (Thanksgiving Weekend) the boys yelled out "Hey Mom, we have something to show you!" I totally didn't expect it to be the big boy putting the baby on a dog leash!!! Man it was funny! Luke absolutely loved it, as did the big two of course, they took Luke-doggy on several walks around the house, giggling the entire time!!! Who knew, in MY household, this would ever happen!!! LOL (btw....it was a toy dog leash from Build a Bear, in Seattle, they built two husky dogs as their treat!)

Then I also thought I'd throw in their first day of school pics too, since I was a bad Mommy and didn't post them when I should have!

I'll even try to find some pics of convention to share with you too, but NOT the nasty blackmail pic that Teri-Lynn took!!! Yuck!!! It was aweful!!! Who needs to see me snorin' logs while they are bouncin' on the bed tryin' to wake me up!! Yuck!!! LOL

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend!

Some recent pictures of the boys.

Luke is enjoying playing the piano with his Daddy...He really loves that...whenever he's cranky, Todd plays and it suddenly makes him happy! We are loving this!


Jacob lost his 5th loose tooth a couple nights ago and he's here posing with his empty spot! He's so proud of it! LOL

Joshua certainly is our little fish....he just loves being in the pool...you end up having to drag him out at the end of a day!

Summer has been a whirlwind and it's almost Jake's Birthday! Yeah!

Hey there everyone;

It's been a crazy busy summer with everything happening all at once! I've really got my eyes set on the countdown to back to school now though!!! I'm nervously looking forward to the new adventure our family will be going on this year with the boys in their new school. I'm really hoping that it'll be a great change for us and the boys will really enjoy it! Of course, I have my Mommy worries like any other Mommy about them meeting new friends and such...I am a little nervous about them not being in a Christian school anymore, but Cathe reassures me that this school is great too, so I'm counting on that recommendation! The boys are so excited, because we went back to school shopping and I let them pick all brand new everythings...pencils and markers and erasers and sharpeners and backpacks and and and and.....can you say guilt shopping? LOL

Jacob is doing his countdown to his birthday party right now! He has one celebration this weekend with Todd's family, and then his real birthday on the 29th with my family (and celebrating Dad's b'day too!) and then his friend's party on the 30th. He gives me the cutest little countdown every single morning when he wakes up! He's totally excited! He also lost another tooth the other day too...he's growing up faster than I can handle...he didn't stay little like Joshua did...Josh was still little at 5, not Jake man...he's more like he's 10 already! He is so funny....he really thinks he's much older than he really is!

We are also taking the boys on a real vacation this weekend too....our vacation plans kept getting screwed up this year for one reason or another, so we decided to pack them up and take them to Toronto to celebrate going back to school/end of summer. We're really excited about it, I think the boys will have a blast....we're even going to take them on the subway...I know, sounds lame to you and I, but I bet the boys go nuts over it! LOL

Luke is doing well...he's got a terrible summer cold right now, but on the bright side, he's walking a little bit more each day....still not walking solid...he looks more like a drunken sailor, but it sure is cute!

Hope everyone enjoys the remainder of their summer and I'll post some new pics of the boys soon!

Lucas is walking! At least a little anyway!

Hey there!

Well...camp certainly has overcome our lives this summer! Much more than I think either Todd or I ever thought it would! It's fun for the most part, but sure is a lot of work! I don't know how Gwen ever did it full time! That's 6 full time jobs far as I can see!!! The staff is absolutely wonderful this year (as all years) and I'm soooo thrilled to meet two wonderful brothers, Rick Walsh (summer director) and Jeff Walsh (chef). It's going very well up there! It's been a real team effort needed. The various committee members have really worked hard this year to be sure that the families and children notice very little change while we make our transition to Theresa as full time director in November. Todd is soooo excited to be able to work with Theresa and is really looking forward to seeing what she decides to do with Camp Kintail in the future. It's exciting, but darn, a lot of work! I'll be happy to see Christmas come this year I think! LOL

So I have some really exciting news to share! Lucas has decided to not only take his first little piddly steps at camp in June, but he took 6 - 8 little steps on his own this past week at Sprouts camp! It was toooo cute! The staff went nuts! Cheering him on and clapping for him! He felt like a genuine celebrity!!! LOL I think it's awefully cute now, but as I was reminded, he's easier to deal with and lots slower when he's still crawling! So, I'm not sure when he'll walk full out, but for now, this is really adorable! He still much prefers to crawl, for now anyway! LOL

Joshua went off to Explorers Camp the 3rd week of summer vacation and he really enjoyed that! He loved being there by himself, all but one day he said he cried because he missed us! I'm glad he did at least a little....makes me feel better that he still "needs" me! Joshua and Jacob went to Sprouts this year (actually just this week, Sun - Wed) and we were able to bring Ben and Matthew and Josh R. along with us this summer! I was sooooo thrilled that Cathe and Karleen were willing to send them! They all had such a great time! It was crazy! I kept checking on them, but sure enough....they were just fine the entire time! They has the time of their lives! It was tooo funny that Ben started a whole new tradition on one of the songs at campfire! It will forever be remembered by the staff! LOL

I am back up to camp for Family camp this weekend, but will be done our camps after that. I might go up at least for a couple more days of Music and Drama camp and Todd is staying for day camp too....so it's not officially over quite yet!

Anyway....it's getting late, so I'm going to go! Hope this finds everyone having a happy and healthy summer!

Lots of love!
Kim and the family
xxoo

Our new family picture!

Hey everyone:

I'm not updating this as often as I should I know, but this family picture was just taken on the weekend and I just love it! So I thought I'd share it with you! Hope you enjoy it too!

Not a lot happening new with us. The summer is coming fast, evidence of that is that work for Camp Kintail is getting busier and busier. Good thing is we love it and it's not that hard to do. The boys are playing soccer now and loving that. They play every Tuesday night (when we're not rained out) and they are really enjoying themselves. Luke is doing well too...he's had a little sickness here and there, but overall, he's doing just great.

Oh I guess the biggest news this week is that Todd has now officially gone back to school to finish his degree. He's nervously anticipating that too. Mostly just looking forward to it being over with and done.

Anyway...hope you all have a great week and hopefully I'll be on here again soon to post some more pictures!

Our pictures from North Carolina!

Our Trip to North Carolina!

Hi All....well Luke and I just returned from our amazing trip out to Wilmington, North Carolina to meet the girls from our board called the "No Drama Mamas", we all have babies in June, 2006. We've become so close that we decided to finally meet each other. It was so much fun! So many of these ladies were exactly what I expected them to be! So sweet and totally my friends! It was the most surreal feeling though...I felt like I have known these women forever and that I've known these babies since birth! It was amazing. We post pictures to each other all the time, and we totally share everything, so I'm sure that's why! It was way too cool to meet them all and I thank Todd for making it possible! He gave me this trip as a thank you gift to the last three months and I'm forever grateful for that! It truly was an amazing trip!


I have a whole bunch of pictures to show you, I hope you enjoy them. Luke was just an absolute angel on the trip, with the exception of the fact that he didn't "want" to smile for many pictures, the little bugger!!! He was playing with these babies like they were his best pals! It was totally amazing!

The first day that Luke and I were down there, we just drove around Cary, NC and tried to find Nan and Papa's restaurant. That was cool. We have some pictures of that too. Then we were tired, so we made the two hour drive down to Wilmington (which is right on the coast near Myrtle Beach). Fortunately because of our problems at the airport, Lukey was wiped out and slept the whole drive. We got settled into our hotel room around 10pm and went to bed to rest up for the weekend.

We got up the next morning and had a great time getting together all the little presents we brought for the Mommies and Babies we were about to meet. We had to borrow a big garbage bag to get the elephants out to Julie's house! LOL We loaded up the rental car and headed out to explore Wilmington...that is one gorgeous, but easy to get lost in little city! LOL Julie had directed me to a discount fabric store and to be honest, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, this place was HUGE! It was so cool. They had so much fabric it was crazy! I was able to really take my time in there because Luke was napping! Yeah! Then we headed over to Walmart to get some diapers and baby food.

Well...about 3pm we were back at the hotel just getting freshened up and there was a knock at the door and it was Krystie and her family and Leeanna and hers! It was so lovely meeting them! I had talked with them on the board and on the phone for so long, that it was fabulous to finally meet them.

Then we all caravaned (and totally got lost) over to Julie's house, where we met Julie, Jamie, Mariah, Janet and Christy and their babies. Some of the girls had their hubbies with them and some of their older kids too. It was so nice to meet them all. Julie threw us a seriously impressive Southern Barbeque! She had real southern chicken and hush puppies, which Luke loved! And something called 'BARBEQUE'...well apparently down there that means "pulled pork with barbeque sauce" LOL....our differences in cultures was so fun! They had a heck of a time trying to explain that to me! LOL

Anyway, the next day we went out to Wright Beach and sat on the beach visiting and having a blast watching the babies play in the sand. Mariah, who is a Photographer by profession, offered to do a photo shoot of all our families and babies. I love the pictures, they turned out fabulously!

Then that night we went to a restaurant called "On the Border"...that was interesting. It was a mexican restaurant and it was so overwhelming, I couldn't decide what to have. I ended up wiht a fajaita and it was great! Then because we didn't want to stop our visit...we camped out on their front yard for a while! LOL I think the staff thought we were nuts, but we got the best pictures there! We took some of the Mommies and babies all together and the babies with the Daddies! That was fun!

Anyway...all in all...it was a fantastic trip and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go and meet my new friends!

Back home again!

Well everyone! We're back home again. We arrived back home on Sunday night and Grandma was there to pick us all up! Thanks Mom, we sure do appreciate all the help you have been over this past few months! We love you so much!! Even if Jakey calls you "Grammy"!!! LOL

The trip was fantastic. The second week was just as cool and exciting as the first. We did go to everything I told you we'd do, with the exception of Mt. Rainier...we were recommended that perhaps we skip that, as they had a really bad storm there with a bunch of flooding and there was roads closed all over the place still...so we just decided to skip it! It wouldn't have been that interesting for the boys anyway...so instead we spent time at Snoqualmie Falls and up in North Bend (the town where the show "Twin Peaks" was based from.)

We really did have a fantastic time! I know the boys really miss Todd even more now since we spent so much time with him. I certainly do! I honestly can not wait for all this to be over with. I'm so proud of Todd for doing what he did with his dedication to this program and I'm thrilled that he continues to further his education and his career! I can just honestly say...I hope we never have to spend that much time apart again in the near future! It's too hard on all of us! In the end, it was worth it for sure, but I'll be honest and say, I'm thrilled he's home in 2 weeks!!! LOL

Well...I'm going to fish through some pictures over the next little while...I'll post more from our trip shortly! Just wanted to let you all know we were home safely!

Lots of Love:
Kim (& the boys)
xxoo

P.S. Lukey learned how to crawl this week btw!!! Real crawling!! It's way too cute!!!

We are having a BLAST!!!

This is Pike's Market, this is where the Flying Fish were. This man is from the US Coast Guard, he was at the Science Museum and he was teaching the boys how to survive if they fell in the cold waters of the Artic! (cuz they might need to know that! LOL)
Welcome to my favourite part of the Science Center...the Grossology Exibit! It was hysterical watching these boys go nuts over all the "gross" things the body does! They certainly did a great job with this display! The boys learned so much! Very cute and even more funny!
We all stood inside this guy's nose, we tickled the sides and he "sneezed" us out! (you could actually feel the air blowing you out!)
These are my three little toots! In this experiment you could make different sounds of toots! Kinda funny, but way gross!
The two boys "built" a house together with plastic walls and nuts and bolts at the Children's Museum!
This was the boys at Pike's in the Turkish Delight Store! Luke and I in the "Fun Forest" at the base of the Space Needle.
Daddy and Luke in the Dinosaur section of the Science Center.


All three boys had me paint their faces at the Children's Museum. Jake was a pirate and the guy working there also made him a felt eye patch to go with it. Luke barely "allowed" me to paint an animal face on him, and Joshua, for the very first time allowed me to paint his face and arms with a space theme. He had a whole solar system up and down his arms and astronauts on his face.


Jake, the pirate on his ship and Joshua rock climbing at the Children's Museum.

The rest of these pics are all from the Children's Museum. They had such a good time there. We spent hours there!

Hi Everyone:

I know I said I'd update lots, but apparently I didn't account for the fact that I'd be this darn busy all the time! Sorry about that! However, we've been busy, busy, busy! We're having a great time!

So far we have been to: The Experience Music Project (a place that is a museum dedicated to music, mostly pop/rock, based on Jimmy Hendrix, lots of guitars and such, but the big draw to this museum is the Sound Lab the kids got to play in. They played real guitars, drums, keyboards and even "mixed" their own songs. They enjoyed it.), Pike's Public Market (wow, that place is huge and absolutely amazing! We have been there twice now and didn't expect to love it quite this much! Josh was very happy because he got some fresh made Turkish Delight there! We discovered a new bakery delicacy there as well...Piroshkys...man those are amazing! Yummy! Not to mention the flying fish! Man, we wish you were here to see that Nan and Papa, it was so cool!), the Sci-Fi Museum (which I lovingly nick named "Geeks-R-Us"....Todd and Josh really liked this one, lots of Star Trek and Star Wars...Jakey liked the very few ET things he saw.), the Space Needle was very cool too (seems so small when you compare it to the CN tower, 1/3 it's height), the Children's Museum (this was waaaayyy too cute! We spent over 5 hours there! It was the best, the kids painted their faces, played imagination in the travelling Bob the Builder section, and travelled from country to country exploring all the differences in the different places, it was way cute! We really enjoyed this visit!), we have also been to the carnival called "Fun Forest" downtown (there are rides there and everything you'd seen in a typical carnival type place).

We have one week left until we are back home and back to school. The agenda has a tonne of things on it still like: a boat tour of Elliot Bay, the Woodland Zoo, the Seattle Aquarium, the Museum of Flight, Snoqualmie Falls and Mt. Rainier as well. Lots and lots to do. So much more than I ever expected Seattle would have to offer! It's been a great vacation so far and I'm sure we'll love the rest too!

The boys all say Hi to everyone and miss you all! Hope you are all enjoying your March Break (if you are getting one of course!)

Love you all!

Kim and the boys

xxoo

Well...we're here in Seattle!

What an amazing place to visit! The rolling terrain is absolutely amazing and so neat to see! Way for different that what we're used to at home! Way off in the distance you can see the majestic mountain ranges....way to beautiful! Thank you God for such an amazing creation!

Well...we're on day #3 now....the airplane ride here was good for the most part. The two older boys were on their very best behaviour (and thank God, because I was sure either Grandma or I were going to have to kill them the couple days leading up to the trip! LOL) Luke did well on the trip as well...fell asleep as we took off and slept about a 1/2 hour and then later in the flight (total 5 hours) he slept another 1 1/2hrs. I was so glad! The only two "not great" things were really minor really....he decided to be Sir "poops" a-lot and that is always an adventure to change a baby in a tiny airplane stall....brings a whole NEW meaning to joining the MILE HIGH Club!!! LOL Then I had to apologize to a few of our fellow passengers because my darling sweet baby decided to become a baby terradactyl during the flight! They were happy noises....they just broke the sound barrier of all human beings! I'm sure many of us will be scheduling hearing tests this coming week to see if these "lovely" squeals did any serious damage! LOL

We arrived right on time on Friday and Todd was there waiting for his family! I seriously question who was more excited to see who??? We quickly gathered our 7 pieces of luggage (ok...sounds worse than it was...two were car seats and two were the boys "special" small kiddie suitcases...wasn't that bad really!) and we went off to rent the van.....the only unknown part to that was that we needed to load ourselves AND all our luggage/stroller/car seats/kids and travel a distance on a shuttle offsite and get our van. Great news was that we got a brand new Chrysler with the stowngo seating and that leaves us with lots of room for all this crap! LOL (I can hear Catherine saying now .... "purge....purge..." Yes...YOU ARE RIGHT!!! lol)

Todd took us for a lovely tour of the area...and over to his office and then eventually over to the apartment. Wow...what a beautiful place to stay...I'll post pictures soon. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, fully furnished and lovely apartment...only about 2 blocks from downtown Bellevue! It is within walking distance of everywhere! It's great!

So Todd surprised me on arrival day with a lovely little birthday dinner...we had flank steak, I just loved it! It was great! He even baked me a chocolate birthday cake! I really appreciated that! He had the boys sign a b'day card for me and they bought me some of my favourite bath products (I'm very excited about these) and they also surprised me with an iPod Shuffle...what was really funny was when we had gone to the mall...they had an Apple Store and I went in and said "You know, some day, I'd love to get one of these little ones!" Low and behold...it was already waiting for me at home! Anyway...we had a lovely supper and then the night ended very early at 8pm with the boys and I totally conking out! LOL We were done!!!

The next day Jakey woke us all up (except Todd of course...a train through the bedroom can't do that! LOL) at 4:30am!!! Yikeso....we'll were pretty much ready for lunch by the time Todd got up and he only got up at 9am! LOL Anyway....I was surprised with a wonderful trip to the Eastside Oasis Spa for a therapeutic/massage pedicure! It was lovely....very different...but lovely! It was a little Vietnamese lady..very nice...but man..those pedis just are not the same there as at home! I got "beat up!" LOL The good kind really...it was nice! Now I have bright blue toenails and happy feet again!

So then they all picked me up after that and we headed downtown Seattle! We were in search of an interactive museum called "The Experience Music Project" (EMP) It was very cool...the boys were able to play guitars, drums and keyboards...they even were able to "mix" their own songs...they had a Disney special exibit going on and that was very cool too exploring sound effects behind the cartoons and listening to how they wrote certain popular pieces to some of the current popular Disney movies! The boys truly had a great time!

Then we walked around a bit scoping things out...there is a lovely carnival called "Fun Forest" right downtown...the boys are very excited about that...they have bumper cars, a huge ferris wheel, and many other very cute little rides. We'll probably go down and do that some day that Daddy is working. It looked very cool!

So then today...it's day 3, we went down to the Pike Market Place...WOW...THAT'S ONE AMAZING PLACE!!! It's like nothing I've ever seen before! The market is just HUGE! There is a little diner in there that Tom Hanks filmed a scene from Sleepless in Seattle in and we took pics of that...we found amazing shops and artists and really had a lovely time. The boy's favourite part was the "Flying Fish" part...they were way too cool! The workers all Hoop and Hollar and make a big production out of someone buying a fish and then they throw the darn thing way across the marketplace....it was way cool! Mommy's LEAST favourite part was the big "Gum Wall"!!! It was just absolutely DISGUSTING! Apparently it's an 'attraction' of sorts...down an alley beside the market (part of the market) there is a wall where all sorts of people have stuck their chewed up gum on the wall...they have even in some circumstances made letters and shapes with it! Probably the most disgusting thing I've even witnessed! Yucko! However, my sick little boys thought it was way cool! LOL

Well that brings us to tonight where Todd and I are just sitting to have dinner and I'm sure I'll keep you posted on our crazy explorations each day! Hope you all had a great weekend as well!
Love ya all!

2 MORE SLEEPS!!!

Well....we only have 2 more sleeps left until we fly away to Seattle to see Daddy! The boys are just so excited...before I even got up this morning, Jakey had already changed our countdown on the white board to two! Very cute!

I'm just about to put the last load of laundry in the wash and then I have a total of three to fold. Clothes are hitting the suitcase tonight!

Jakey has Beavers tonight and he's excited about that, because he gets a badge for participating in the Beaver Buggy Races.

Luke has refused to nap all day today and has finally fallen asleep! I'm hoping he sleeps for a while so I can get some work done!

Anyway...short post today, sorry! Just wanted to let you all know that we are almost gone! Yeah!!! (I do believe Todd just might be more excited than we are! LOL)

It was Chess Day today! It's Silver for Josh!!!

Well....Joshua competed for his school today in the Canadian Chess Challenge and he really had a good time. He along with 4 other class mates won a place at the county/city wide tournament today. They played 8 games each and you get 1 point for a win, 1/2 pt for a draw/stale and 0 pt for a loss....well Josh got 5 1/2 points total. He won 5 games and got a draw on one, lost the other 2. (one of which was a very useful loss because he learned something so valuable! I learned to grab your camera quicker....he lost in under 2 minutes! Very fast little game!) I have to give him credit...he paid attention to what he was doing, he was very polite to all his competitors and he was totally fine with the losses. So because his table had a 4 way tie...he tied 4 ways for the silver metal...one boy named Calvin (Chinese, no surprise there!) won gold at our table (there were 4 tables of Grade 3s). Anyway...he won a place in the "Playoffs" on Saturday in March to choose three players from each Grade level to send to the Canadian Chess Challenge in Toronto. So he's very excited about that! You had to get at least 6 1/2 points or win Gold or Silver to earn a place in the next tournament and Josh qualified. I thought the boy was going to go through the roof with excitement!

Above are a couple pics of the tournament and here is his special medal, he's so excited!

Alright....I'd better head to bed...as the boys are saying 4 more sleeps till we fly away to Seattle!!! I'll post more about that tomorrow! Love you all!

Big news for us today!!

IT WAS A SNOW DAY!!!

So I know I've not been very good at keeping this blog up...I'm trying, but didn't really realize how zonked I'd be all the time! We're making it through though and here's our updates for you!

On Tuesday, the classes in the boys' school did their "in class" speech contests...Grades one through three do poems and 4 - 8 do speeches/demonstrations, etc. So as you all know, Joshua is generally very timid and doesn't speak very loudly at all...but this time around...he won a spot to represent his class in the all school Effective Speaking Contest on Friday. He's just over the moon excited about it. The really cute thing he said to me yesterday though was "Mommy, I feel so bad for Indica...she wins every single year and this year she didn't! I wish I could give her my spot!" How thoughtful, eh? This really was a good thing to happen to him to boost his confidence level! We are so proud of him! His poem is just way too cute as well...It's called "Adventures of a Frisbee" by Shel Silverstein! Very adorable. He's got great inflection and enthusiam in his voice when he recites it! Good job Josh!

Anyway...then the even more exciting news today is that Todd is surprising the boys and I by going to the airport extra early and seeing if he could bump his midnight flight up to this afternoon. He'll be arriving in Detroit at 4pm! I'm so excited! We'll have a very long visit with him this weekend! Thursday night, Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday! The boys are just going to be so excited! I was thrilled when he told me!

Yesterday was a potentially challenging day with him being gone as I realized it was the first Valentine's Day Todd and I wouldn't have spent together in 15 years. That kinda sucked...however, he did send me some lovely flowers and a nice card...so that was nice. We awoke to a surprise phone call (ok...not a surprise to me, but to the boys it was!) and it was Mrs. Morin, Josh's teacher telling us that the boys were officially having a SNOW DAY!!! It was so cute, because when I was finished talking to her, (the boys were sleeping in bed with me) I hear out of the darkness "Did I just hear what I think I just heard?" Josh says! "IT'S A SNOW DAY!!!" He was up and yelling and celebrating in an INSTANT!!! He was so excited because it was their very first snow day ever!!! (I know, strange, huh?) Although I'm sure Josh had one in JK...other parents think we haven't...so I must be wrong. It was so darn cute...Josh was trying so hard to get Jakey excited too....but Jake just kept saying "Uhh.....whatever....go back to sleep!" LOL It was very funny! The boys' got to play outside in the snow for the first time this winter (we've just not gotten good play snow until now!)! Here are the pictures of them in their forts! We had to make signs for the flags they stuck in the ground!

So the boys and I spent the whole day together, which I think probably was the best thing for all of us...I hadn't realized how much I spend just telling them what to do next or yelling at them to stop fighting....I haven't spent much time at all just enjoying them and playing games and so on in a while...so that was fun yesterday.

Unfortunately last week, I was stupid and tried to play "Daddy" and decided to wrestle with my boys like he does...well....bad idea...because Josh decided to land on my back, throwing it out for a week! It's much better now...but still sore in places. I've been seeing the Chiropractor and taking lots of really good 'drugs'! LOL I sadly had to take some time off work too...today is my first day back with the kids since last Thursday. Too bad it wasn't just a 'week off' and enjoyable. It seems like it happened just yesterday. All is well there though...it's mending nicely. I was so appreciative of all the people that came to help during the week! Catherine came extra time to help out with the lifting of the baby and the laundry and helping with the boys too...she's such an amazing lady and we all love her so much! Cathe, Karleen and Angela, all friends from MOPS all brought me meals! It was so darn sweet of them! The meals were great! Thanks ladies! Maggie came over to sleep over and help me on Friday night...she was an amazing help with Luke and also with keeping the boys busy for me so I could rest.

So I suppose I should be off to get this house cleaned up for Todd! (yes Mom...that was said just for you! LOL) hehe!!! Oh and I should put on some makeup and get nicely dressed for him too, right? LOL Oh right...and an undershirt on the baby! Got it! Going to take care of all that! LOL

I'll try to keep the blog better updated and I'm going to send find some new pics too! Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!