tooth fairy

tooth fairy or no tooth fairy...that is the question. CO had one tooth pulled in the Spring and since I was on the fence about the tooth fairy, I just didn't mention it.  I don't know if I want to get in the habit of having to crawl around in the dark looking for a tooth under the pillow so I can leave some change...

Well that little tooth in the front is wiggly. CO has been asking if his tooth is ready to be pulled out for the last couple of weeks. I remind him that I don't pull teeth but that he can wiggle it to help it get ready to fall out. Today is was fairly wiggly and I told him that if he ate an apple that it would probably come out...so CO did...and the tooth I think got eaten with his bites of apple :)
So once again I dodged the tooth fairy bullet...
I think we will just make wishes like Sal does from 'One Morning in Maine' by Robert McCloskey

celebration...

CO selected these cupcakes from the bakery to celebrate passing his swimming level...one for him and J. (I kept the hats so that we could make them on our own in the future)

 

 

 

CO is excited to finally be a Crocodile in swimming...a cool sounding group when you are a boy...much more exciting that a sunfish :)

(I back blogged :) nothing like waking early and putting out 6 posts) 



time is drawing near...

Well Christmas is VERY close...less than 10 days now. Am I ready? NO Could I wing it? probably
Last week the big nasty sickness that is going around took 5 days of my life. My recovery might have been slowed by the fact that I threw out my back just before the illness hit me.
My first day back to join the land of the living, CO and I went to cut down the Christmas tree.

CO had been up that day since six and the two nights before up at four and I think he missed his nap the day before...so he was weary too...about 20 minutes before we were set to leave to get the tree, this is how I found him...passed out cold

My son has a 'now' personality. I knew once we got that tree there was NO holding off getting it decorated so he dug out the lights and went through the process to change burnt bulbs

unfortunately there were too many burnt out ones that we needed to just buy new lights, but we couldn't head out until after J got home from access, so crazy me took two boys shopping for Christmas lights after 730 at night...I was going to go to Home Hardware but it was closed, next option was TSC (I wanted an environment that wouldn't be too over stimulating this late at night and close to the holiday...so no Walmart). Mission success and on clearance to boot.

I the boys had a lovely time decorating the tree together. I handed out the ornaments and attached hooks. I have no photos of them decorating or of the finished project yet...

Mom gave me the Christmas Carousel to put up.

(photo from Amazon)

We have it set up along the bottom of the tree. The boys play it ALOT. It plays different Christmas Carols.  I bought it with my mom one of my last years in high school. It is nice that it still works. We were inspired to buy it because we saw one at Grandma Willman's house on her fireplace mantel. (Grandma Willman is an old neighbour of my father that we grew up calling Grandma Willman and she is actually CO's great Nanny...how cool is that)

 

This past week we (mom and I) took the boys to the mall to get their photo taken with Santa.

Results turned out well:

I was torn if I should get their photos taken separate or together. J should have been gone weeks ago. But now I'll have him at least until mid January. Nothing like trying to get your grandson back with the minimal amount of effort possible.
Life with J is less fun these days. He is only with us 3 days per week. Two weeks ago he was sick with pneumonia, so he was under the weather, I'll give him a pass for that week. This week, I am not sure what his problem was but there was a lot of time spend on 'time out' for kicking, biting, swearing, hitting and disobedience. Our trip to the mall was a complete bust other than the photo as he spent the rest of the time screaming in the stroller that he wanted to be a bad boy...sigh. After days like that I feel bad in thinking that his grandparents can have him! I am not sure if they are ruining him or if he was just reacting to his crazy life where he lives 4 days a week in one environment and 3 days each week in a different one. His two worlds are SO different and never overlapped. Which is too bad. I think that it would be easier for him if there was an overlap but that isn't going to happen as the grandparents just see me as the enemy and are too busy trying to stir up garbage to focus on J and his needs.

 

This weeks goals: finish Christmas shopping and making of gifts, bake gingerbread men and string popcorn for the tree, do Christmas cards (yes I do not have these done yet..sigh)

 

 

 

first day of December....posted late

(which was really the last day of December as I worked on the Saturday and was too busy at work to even think about taking out a camera...my day did include a art show and a belly dancer)

 

 

 

yes some days we are the typical 'homeschool' and my son spends the day in his pjs :)  J was gone for access by 9am.

letter to Santa...

CO hasn't been too eager to write lately so I decided he could write a letter to Santa for school. He is just starting to add some lowercase letters. He is very stubborn and prefers writing all uppercase. We need to work on making things smaller too :)
He addressed the letter to Saint Nic because one of our Christmas books refers to him as Saint Nic and CO thinks it is fun that he has lots of names too.
He took the letter to the postoffice and I got teary watching him ask the lady at the postoffice if he needed a stamp.

Maybe Santa's reply will come before Christmas....he may have already but we don't check the mail more than once a week usually.

 

Dear Santa
Can I

please

have a

float truck

from CO

adventures in walking...

 

Our beloved trail that we used to hike at our last house has an entrance just at the end of a street near our new house. Needless to say, when days are crazy, I head that way with the boys as I find spending time in the nature God provided soothing to the soul.

On this day, J was driving me bonkers so I decided to take the boys for a walk and minutes before leaving my friend asked if I would take her two older foster girls so she could go grocery shopping. So off I went with a 5 year old, a 3 year old and two 2 year olds. (My 2 year old being a grump as usual these days...part way down the road to get to the trail, J turned around and headed home)

but once out there it was lovely!

(yes the two littlest one's head fit between those bars)

oh yeah...Fred joined us too.

two little girls warming up in the stroller

grumpy J

more grumpy J

view...nice...

grumpy J (note to self...not everyone picks up poop when hiking the trail...so one needs to check the ground before giving time outs...eww)

 

'tis the season...

We are getting in the festive spirit in our house. I started playing Christmas Carols after we got home from my birthday vacation. Which has inspired some of the snowman decorations to be put up around the house and on the doors.

One of our traditions is we stick our nutcrackers in the window.

(photo from this site)

It started after we went to Ottawa one year for Christmas and CO's grandmother has LOTS of nutcrackers. The next year leading up to Christmas he saw one at Walmart and REALLY wanted it because Nana had them. So he brought it home and put it in the windowsill in the bathroom.  He played with it alot and talked to it and often he would arrange it so he was looking out the window. CO decided he was looking for snow. Because of course Nutcrackers love snow just as much as he does.
Thursday we unpacked our three nutcrackers (we now have two little ones that Nana gave from her collection for the two boys last year) and put them in the bathroom window upstairs to watch for snow.

Friday evening after supper we were preparing to take Fred for a walk and CO was SO excited to see some snowflakes in the air! The first snowfall is so magical especially when you can share it with your kids.

He was probably thrilled to wake up this morning to a white winter wonderland.

home again...

I had a much needed break from my reality! for a whole week I was able to catch up on sleep, spend time with family and forget about the crap that is the whole situation surrounding J.  We celebrated 3 family birthdays, Thanksgiving and an anniversary.
On the way up, CO and I stopped to pick up some toys in St. Jacobs. He selected this helmet for himself.

CO found a gravel pile at my Uncle's, he spent LOTS of time digging and 'mixing cement' in the bucket beside it and then filling the dump truck and spreading it out along the gravel driveway.

Cousins at the mall. Very little shopping was done with these two peas in a pod. The moms gave up quickly on thier plan to spend the day shopping and decided to take the boys for Pizza instead. Where my son managed to pack away 9 pieces of pizza...it scares me how much he can eat at only 5.

This is Carter's selection for his birthday cake. He wanted a hunter in a tree and a deer. I had a hard time with his selection. I wanted the deer to be running away :)

 

we did a family trip to the honey house. YUM YUM. We got lots of goodies and got my cupboards refilled with honey.

We also celebrated my parent's 40th wedding anniversary.

One of my favorite days was Monday where I got to spend the whole day (until 5), relaxing at the spa with two lovely ladies. It was nice having so much adult conversation. :) CO got to spend his day at 'daycare' for the first time ever. He said it was fun but too long. And I agree, casuse I missed him too.
CO has been saving his money (birthday & paper route) to spend at Jolley's. It touched my heart that after selecting a fork lift for himself, he decided to spend the rest of his money on something for his brother :(  Having J in our lives has been great for CO, having him to think about someone other than himself is a HUGE step for him.

Yesterday we woke up to a small amount of snow. CO was SO SO SO excited. He shoveled the deck and worked hard at sweeping off the vehicles.

Now, we are home. Within an hour of arriving home, J arrived too. I have enjoyed listening to the sound of happy brothers again. We have decided to not go out to our Wednesday night activities so they can 'play' together. They missed eachother. This is going to be hard on them come the end of the month.

goodbye...for 4 days or 14?

A month ago I told J's SW that I was going to go away in November for a week. We discussed that this would be a good opportunity for J to have a LONG visit with his grandparents to give them a better idea what it would be like to have him full time. We discussed dates. Two weeks later we talked about it again...

I just put him in the driver's car to go for his visit. I have NO idea if I said goodbye for 4 days or 14...sigh

His SW called this morning and appologized for forgetting and would said she would get back to me this afternoon to let me know...

sigh

first day - november

 

linking up for the 1st of the Month....