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a little educational activity.

ok...i decided that we needed more education in our day. Mya knows how to sing the alphabet but not aiden. Neither can recognize letters yet. I was thinking about buying letters and putting them on the wall in the play area. no ,too lazy...i just took the tiles from our coffee table and flipped them over and wrote the letters on the backs.....lol

creative or crazy!?

friend from fontamara

This is Kervens with mya and aiden. We met up with him and his mom in saskatoon. He was at fontamara with M and A. They must have played together at one point as they spent 2 years together in the nursery together. Kervens came home in January and M and A in Feb.

Hope we can get together with them again...kids had fun!

concert pics

holiday

Wednesday afternoon we headed to saskatoon ( 2 1/2 hours away). Several months ago M and A were really into watching the doodlebops...a kids show...they sing and dance!
I saw that they were doing a live show in saskatoon so i got tickets. They hadn't watched them for a while lately so i was wondering if they would still enjoy it. They did!
We took an extra day and did some visiting with friends and family too. Kens aunt and uncle live in saskatoon and they had not met the kids yet. We arrived wed in time for supper. We had a great meal and the kids actually behaved really well. We had a good visit and headed to the hotel for night. We had a hard time finding a hotel room as beyonce was in town for a concert.....yes we picked doodlebops over beyonce...my how our lives have changed.
Thurs am m and A woke at their usual 7am. even though it was 10 before they got to sleep.
We went to the restaurant for breakfast and then planned to swim and waterslide. Unfortunatly the waterslides didn't open until 4pm. We swam....after ken went shopping for little swimmer diapers. Mya would have been fine without but not Aiden. Ken had to go to 3 different stores to find any. So we swam for a couple of hours and headed back to our room.
Oh ya our room. We had asked for a room with 2 beds. The best they could do when i booked was a king and a sofabed. When we arrived at the hotel they said...hmmm..looking for our reservation, i had booked it on line. Apparently they didn't have the room we requested so they upgraded us to a suite...awwww!
It worked really well with the kids they had more room to play.
So after our swim we got company. A friend that i had been in contact with for some time , who also adopted from the same orphanage came to see us at the hotel. Her son come home a month before m and a and they are the same age. They were in the same building and room as he was , so i am guessing they have played together before. I will post pictures of them together if ok'd by his mom.
So after lunch and a visit they headed home and we all needed a nap. We slept for an hour and then it was time to get ready for the big concert!
We had told M and A that it might be loud so even before we got inside aiden was plugging his ears. He did not take his fingers out until the concert started.....lol.
I think they were in some kind of audio/video overload. they just sat and looked for the first half. The second half of the show they got up and danced and clapped. Aiden kept waving at them and yelling HI!!! hahaha.
Friday am we did a little shopping at Old navy and then went to another friends house for lunch.
2 of her kids had a day off of school so that worked really well. They played for an hour or so and we headed back on the road home. Aiden and i caught a sinus cold so he slept most of the way home. Mya was tired too but took her a lot longer to fall asleep.
Home sweet, home now.....
Tired and sick...i am home from work today. Hopefully will go back tomorrow.

fun with bubbles

How can anyone be mad at this sweet face

why do i bother

Why do i bother to clean? I don't know. I guess i can't leave the room anymore or aiden thinks he can make me a "surprise".

This was crackers, cornpops juicebox and lotion all mixed together.....all i did was go upstairs to get dressed.

more stuff

We finally have some nice weather. Yesterday the kids and I met some friends at the park. they played for about 2 1/2 hours. No jackets and being out side was great!!

happy for our friends

I am very happy. I learned the other day that our friends are finally bringing their little boy home from haiti.
It has been a long hard fight for them! Silas has been "theirs" for years and legally for many, many months. Unfortunatly the US government and others have caused them a lot of grief and delays.
The Haiti government takes a long time to approve files then to get to the end and have issues with your own countries government must really really be awful.
When we brought Mya and Aiden home , their visa only took 2 days. Many US families are waiting months and some are being denied all together. that is what almost happened with silas.
Luckily his family still had the fight in them...who wouldn't fight for their child!!!!
Silas will be home in a few short days....yippee!

Cuties

what happened to the weekend

So here i sit and it is monday am already. How did that happen? What did we do?

On Friday night Kens mom and dad came over for a visit. Sat am we woke...lazed around and ken started a project to replace our bathtub. To be honest i have not had a bath in almost 3 years because the tub we had was too small. Bathing to me means soaking .....could not do that in a little kid tub!

so ken proceeds to remove the old tub....with the HELP of the kids....lol

I was heading out for lunch with friends so we decided to all go out and get the kids passport photos done. Anyone who goes into the US as of June 1st needs a passport. We have many friends that we met during this adoption process who live in the US. We thought we might head that direction this summer. Unfortunately many still do not have their kids home so we are just going to play it by ear. M and A will have their passports just in case.

After that fun experience of getting the photos just right, i headed off for lunch with some friends and ken took the kids home to finish working on the tub....apparently they were not much of a help.

I then went for my hair appt which took much , much longer than expected as she was behind with doing hair straightening. Oh well i read a magazine for an hour as i could picture what was happening at home.

so that was all that happened on saturday..i think.....

Yesterday we went to the lake to pick up the snowmobiles and put them to bed till next year. The kids were happy to have one last short ride. Spring appears to be here now....finally!!!

We are going to try to go to music class today if everyone cooperates. there have been more tantrums and timeouts lately with Mya....however today is a new day...so we will see!

This week i need to accomplish the taxes and the local union payroll. wish me luck!

my other/furry children..left in the dust.

so as you see my extra large cats are all in hiding during the day.the black cat is Mickey he hides under the stairs in the basement until the kids go to bed at night. Oliver is the cat that now lives under the table and hisses if mya or aiden comes near! . Santo is the brave one and sleeps on the back of the chair. He lets the kids maul him for short periods. He has had some abuse but takes it well. Santo is very good with the kids.

the cats are 10 and 11 years old and were spoiled for many years. Now in their elder years are being left in the dust....poor guys!

Aiden, aiden, aiden!

So i was in the kitchen and heard a crash....

I am not sure what preceded this picture but aiden was rubbing his arm and looking very scared when i got there.

No injuries or damage ,so all is well.

By the way...this is the second time he tipped over my dresser.

I think he was trying to stand in a drawer.....lol

funny now!

trying to think of something to post about

How about sleeping!
Everyone you talk to seems to have issues with sleeping....or being allowed to sleep by their kids.
It appears that children at many ages still try to crawl into their parents beds or wake during the night.
If any one has a fix to that one i would love to know about it.
Aiden and Mya are at least taking turns at waking during the night. It used to be both of them which was even more exhausting.
For the longest time Mya was the one waking, wanting a bottle still and wanting to be in bed with us. Now it is Aidens turn. I guess I mentioned how well he was sleeping too much and now he is making me eat my words!
Aiden does not stay awake as long as mya does when she gets up during the night but he is such a restless sleeper that i have bruises. He kicks and flops around.
Last night we tried to take him back to his bed. The first time it worked because it was ken who was doing it....he listens better to him.
The second time i took aiden back to his room and he started to cry. Mya and Aiden share a room so that was not going to work so I took him downstairs and we slept in the other bedroom. He was still restless but got a little more sleep than the last few weeks.
When aiden went to bed last night he got all serious and looked worried. He was staring at the end of his bed. I said 'tell me what is wrong"....he said "snowman" in a really quiet voice....I said ...there is no snowman here and the one outside has melted...we can make another one if we get more snow....he nodded and layed down.
Who knows what that was all about...maybe had a bad dream one night that a snowman was in bed with him or something...now he doesn't want to stay in his bed.
We have also found him in myas bed with her. I wish i could of taken a picture of the other night. He was completely wrapped around the top of Myas head. Too cute!
I know that some day they will not want to snuggle with us or have anything to do with us so I should enjoy it right??
Well as i said to someone ......i am not a very good mommy , wife, daughter, friend etc....when i am tired. So ....i need to sleep.
over and out

a little surprising that mya was dirtier than aiden

mud pics

fun in the mud

So who sends their kids outside to play while they get supper started......during a day of melting snow?
Dirt and melting snow makes.....you guessed it...lots of mud!
So who had more fun...the kids or mom taking their pictures! lol

misc pics

fun at mcdonalds

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
kids had music class this am. After that we went to mcdonald so the kids could play and have lunch....if that is what you want to call it!
All was fine until the whining started. We are trying to nip that in the bud and so i said we had to go. they could have two more times down the slide. Well that did not go over well with mya, so she started to throw a fit. I distracted her with a toy and bribes.....ya i know.
Then she went to play again...and the crying started again. I pulled her out of the play structure, now with her kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs. Good thing there weren't too many people there. I tried to settle her down. Tried a time out in the corner. Now full blown tantrum. Oh the joys!
It ended up with me carrying her out in the football hold, kicking and screaming, with out shoes or jacket....cus she was too strong and i didn't want to injure her or myself. luckily my friend helped out with aiden and got him dressed and out to the van.
Now Aiden is also mad and doesn't want to get in the van. Oh the drama.
so i wrestle him in. phew!!
Now i have 2 screamers in the back of the van ....wishing i had earplugs.
We arrived home to aiden sleeping and Mya pouting.....
All is well now. It is amazing how the mood can change so fast either way. We just finished dancing to my new playlist on this blog.
Mya really likes the Ram Jam song the best....lololol For those who don't know, Myas birth name was Betty!

new background AGAIN

This background is called spring.....maybe it will help spring to come!
Yes i will admit i already know the forcast!

background

Awww that feels better. It was like i was being suffocated with purple flowers on that last background! Now this one is a little boring...will probably change it again.
Oh well....what else do i have to do with my time.!lol
so last night i worked nights...it is good to be back to work at the hospital. the one or two days a week i am doing right now is perfect...now if i could only get full time pay doing that.
I got home this am at 8 . Had breakfast with the kids and headed for bed. Mya and aiden wanted to tuck me in. They both got on the bed and tucked the blankets under me. Mya then said "song" she sang twinkle , twinkle ...kissed me on the forehead and hopped off the bed saying nigh, nigh mommy!! AWWWW so cute!
I woke at about 1130 and still need to shower.
Aiden is a little sick today with a cough and snotty again. No fever yet...unlike most kids around.
It is really amazing how healthy m and a have been this past year.
BTW....Feb 21st was one year home for them... this last year has zipped by wayyyyy too fast!