Visit with Amie

My friend Amie came over today with her girls, we had so much fun! First we headed to the Fox Run hill for some sledding. Lena and Ryder got to use their new GTs, man those things are wicked! Good job, Levi and Amber, the kids love them. Amie's girls and my big boys tried them out, too. Way cool. Even Amie and I got on the big black sled and took a few runs (and omg was THAT hilarious). Then we came back to our house for some pizza and chips and caesar salad and pop and chocolates. Oh, and we had a Kinect party! Amie got her girls an Xbox Kinect and some games for Christmas, so they brought them out; they had Wipeout (the tv show game), Twister Party, Dance Central 2, and the Black Eyed Peas dance game. Added to our Kinect Adventures, Dance Central 1, Kinect Disneyland, and Kinectimals. Amie and I delighted in embarrassing our kids with our lame dance moves, and her girls kicked everyone's butts at the Twister game. Even my boys got into the spirit of it all, which I thought they might lame out and just sit on the couch, uncomfortable with goofing around like that in front of her cute girls. Amie's littlest one, Izzy (who is 7), was a dancing queen at Dance Central, and Lena wowed us all at how good she was at Kinect Adventures. 


F-U-N!!!

More Christmas pics/vids

At Deanna's annual Christmas Eve party...

Tyler and Gino (Opie's new boyfriend) were having "fish talk", finally Ty found a guy to talk about fishing with! They were comparing fishing techniques, favorite spots, etc. It was cute. (Also, I could get away with outright staring at Gino and if I got busted I was fully prepared to say it was Hubs I was staring at, LOL!)

Ryder got a sweet marshmallow-gun from Deanna, what does Ardan do? Steal it out of his hand and run away with it! Typical. 

Christmas Day...

At Julie's house, later Christmas day...

Lena chatting with her "new best friend, Kali" about all the awesome makeup that Kal just gave her. Kal cleaned out her makeup case and gave all the excess stuff to Lena, we're talking a HUGE bag of preemo makeup, I'm pretty jealous. There were also some perfumes and lotions in there. Lena was in HEAVEN. 

Life with BOYS: Top 10

1. When you go out and buy a new toilet seat rather than have to clean the old one.

2. You turn a blind eye to the number of showers your teenage son has in a day. (Also see #3)

3. Your son brings you his sheets to wash every other day.

4. "We're just going to have a sandwich" results in an entire loaf of bread gone, an empty peanut butter container, and jam spilled all over the counter.

5. There's an instinctive shudder of dread when you're doing laundry and have to reach into the pants pockets before putting them in the wash. 

6. Dried snot on the walls no longer fazes you. 

7. You buy candles and air freshener by the bucketful, just to try to overpower the aroma of Eau de Boy Stench. 

8. You have learned your lesson about coming to investigate when your son yells from the bathroom, "Mom, come see!"

9. Milk and juice jugs are put back in the fridge with mere droplets left inside.

10. "If you don't clean your room, I'll do it for you" is a really great threat. Boys have secrets, don't you know. 

Vids that make you FEEL

A Simcoe Christmas

I was just sitting on the couch all by my lonesome; the kids came upstairs and one by one came to sit by me. I just had to get a pic taken to capture the moment... my kids love me!

Is Baby Wyatt not the spitting image of Levi? He is the cutest baby, just wanna cuddle him forever. Well, until he starts fussin', then its back to Mama. Lol

Lena got a Barbie makeup kit from Uncle Trapper and Aunty Becky, she was in heaven!

Opening their gifts from Uncle Levi and Aunty Amber... GTs! 

Wearing her new hot-pink Barbie lipstick.

Playing with Wyatt's gift from us, Christmas finger puppets. Levi played with it for like five minutes! 

Trapper was like, "Aww, poor Ryder, that's not a very fun gift" THEN he saw Ryd's reaction to it: "THOMAS BEDDING, YESSSSS! How did you know I really NEEDED this, Gramma?" Ryder even took it out of the packaging (even the sheets, lol). We thought it was funny that Ryder said 'bedding', not blanket. How grown up.  

Schlockey Christmas Surprise!

Isn't it funny what your brain remembers, and what it stashes away for an "Oh YEAH!" moment? 


I knew my brothers had been working on a really cool handmade gift for the boys. Trapper came down a few times from Edmonton to help Levi build their surprise gift, and I knew it would be something big and for outdoors. But I had no clue what it could possibly be. Neither the boys or mom would give me any hints; it was to be a surprise for me as well.


Our Simcoe family Christmas dinner was planned for Thursday, Dec 22nd (yesterday), as that was the only day it would work for Trapper and Becky. The boys' big surprise gift was to be unveiled that night. However, that morning I was talking to mom and she just had to tell me. "Its a schlockey board!"
"Huh?"
"You know, schlockey! Don't you remember schlockey?"
"Um, no."
"Beau! Your gym teacher, Mr Rands, at the CP school, made a schlockey board for all the kids to play with at recess and it was such a huge hit, kids would literally line up at recess for a turn. Your brothers got your dad to make them one and they were outside every day for hours on that thing."
"Huh. Really? I don't remember that at all."


I felt like such an idiot, how did I not remember that? But when the big moment arrived and we all went outside to watch the boys' reactions to their surprise present, when I saw the schlockey board I was like, "Oh yeah! Schlockey!" 


It is so cool. Its like a little mini-rink, with two holes in the centre board, and one at each end. Players use a sawed-off hockey stick that has an angled end and they madly bat the puck around until someone scores. 


The time, effort, and care put into the creation of this schlockey board is just incredible, I'm in awe of my brothers. They used regular plywood and boards, painted the surface white and then lacquered it so it would be slippery. They even painted the lines and circles you see on regular rink surfaces, AND they found an Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins (the boys favorite teams) decals. 


Well, the gift was a HUGE hit and the boys and their uncles played all night. Gunnar didn't want to go home because the schlockey board was to be delivered by their uncles in the morning, he wanted to keep playing. Thankfully, sweet Trapper drove the board to our house later that night. And sure enough, when I woke up I could hear the sounds of sticks madly slapping and the boys hootin' and hollerin' coming from outside. They must've woke up early and went straight outside. Ardan's friend Dawson came over today and the schlockey marathon was ON. Gunnar strutted inside and bragged "I'm the undisputed schlockey champion, a 21-game winning streak!" So now noone wants to play him anymore, haha. 


So to my brothers I want to say, THANK YOU. You guys rock!

Ryder's Christmas Concert

Look at the ears! And the lip! And the tie! The tie was killing me, I had JUST fixed it before he went onstage, then he pulled it down again. Gunnar says "You can tell its a zipper tie" - oh shut up Gunnar! LOL

After the concert, everyone went into the Fellowship Hall for potluck snacks (we brought cheese & crackers, and some gluten-free crackers for Spencer, who has the same allergy as Ty -- his mom just loves me because I always make sure that Spencer can eat what the other children are eating). There were five tables set up with various crafts, and the kids bypassed the food (except Ryder, lol) so they could get craftin'. 

 

The 'candy' table was a HUGE hit, obviously. Kids were lined up to decorate a Christmas tree (icecream cone) with frosting and candies. Lena, Ryder, and Ardan all made a tree and then got to eat them on our way to Red Deer after. 

 

This is the candle-centrepiece table. The kids put playdough in a small aluminum tray, set a scented candle in the middle, then decorated with Christmas flowers and greenery. Beautiful!

 

So many people came up to me and said how they thought it was just wonderful how both my older boys were doing crafts with all the children, and that I have such well-behaved and polite children. I love hearing that. I'm a proud mama!

 

Here we have the card-making table. Lots of stamps and ink pads, card stock, glue, and markers.  They all made some really nice cards!

 

This is the ornament table. The kids made a star out of colored popsicle sticks and glued a little picture of a wiseman inside. Lena gave her ornament to her bus driver.