Landon's day camp

Well, every time I drop Landon off, he's telling me he doesn't want to go to daycamp, and he's cried 3 out of 4 mornings this week. But the girls tell me that as soon as I turn around and start walking away, Landon's just fine. Which I totally believe - it's just a show for mom!! A big improvement today - when I went to pick Landon up, he was so busy playing with a little friend that he just waved and kept playing. The first three days he gave me rib-splitting hugs as soon as he saw me. Only one more day left of camp this week ... we'll see how it goes. He swims tomorrow, which he loves, so it might be easier. Of course, Thomson and Issy will be here so he likely won't want to leave them. We'll have to see.

All this daycamping has been screwing poor Arlan up. I have to wake him up to go and pick up Landon - and that makes him grumpy throughout the afternoon. He doesn't get a long enough sleep in the morning, but doesn't want to lay down in the afternoon, and then just a short snooze means grumpy later in the day. :-/ So from that perspective I'll be glad when day camp is over!

Liz, Rob and the kidlets will be here late tonight (like 1 am). Looking forward to a few days of frenzied fun!! Don't know what all we'll do yet. Weather's supposed to be quite nice, Sat super-hot, so we can hit a spray pool or something I'm sure!

That's about it ... until next time...

We've been busy..

Sorry for so few posts - we've been busy, doing summery things.
Uncle Neville and Aunt Mary were here for a few days (July 9 - 12), we had a great visit. I even got to golf with John and Uncle Neville while Aunt Mary watched the boys ... what a TREAT! Thank you AGAIN Aunt Mary - we truly appreciate it.
And we've been getting a project done -- putting rock beside the house. We are helping our neighbour out quite a bit with this project, too ... Which means it's a LOT bigger than it needed to be. But we worked up the dead grass, moved some soil around to level things out, put landscaping fabric down, and John's moving rock as I type (I put a couple of shifts in earlier today). He will get plenty close to done tonight - will likely be able to finish up tomorrow. I'm so HAPPY! That's been a big project that we've just been putting off, it'll be nice to be done. And it'll look good too!!

Other than that - just getting prepped for Aunty Liz, Uncle Rob, Thomson and Isabel's arrival this Friday! THAT is going to be AWESOME!! The weather promises to be gorgous, and the kids will have an absolute BLAST! YAY!! Spray pools, here we come...

Anyways, I'll sign off now - will try to get a few more pics posted a bit more frequently ... will definitely have some next week, after the visit from the cousins. until then...

Some more pics...

We bought Landon a brand-new backpack, in preparation for his first time at day camp. He LOVES it!! He picked it out himself (it's CARS, of course), and then refused to take it off for about 3 days. Finally, he filled it with his cars, because that meant Arlan couldn't get them!! LOL
He got to use it today - he went to daycamp at Cardel Place. 9 - noon, every day this week. He was pretty shy when we first arrived, but went off with his group with no real fuss. The girls said he was just fine, so hopefully he was. He was quite happy to see me though - a BIG hug when I picked him up. And he'll be in bed shortly, I think they tuckered him out!! hopefully he'll enjoy the rest of the week too.
Landon and dad built a SugarShack that Uncle Neville and Aunt Mary brought for him (from Banff). He calls it the "ShiggieShack" It took some time for Landon to get enthused, but once he figured out how to glue he LOVED it. Here he's gluing the Canadian Flag in above the door of the shack.

And a pic of Arlan - OH so happy, right when he wakes up! I snapped this pic when he first woke up from a nap. The happiest little monkey around...

Arlan's Walking!!

There's no denying it - Arlan is a walker!! And look how proud he is, too!!

He has been taking a few steps here and there for almost a month, but the past two days he's really been making 'strides' (pun intended). And today, he was practising all over the yard and house! So sweet to see (and a bit sad for mommy too!). These pictures are from last night (Sunday)

Arlan fun walking!

One of the fave passtimes for both boys is chasing each other around and around and around. They also like to 'smash' their respective toys together. I'm going to go nuts...slowly but surely, I'm going to go nuts. LOL

Landon FUN

Landon actually did some 'crafts' with mommy today!! I can hardly believe it ... first time he spent any amount of time doing anything like this with me (outside of painting and play-doh I guess). He's been wanting to make a caterpillar like in the story Miss Bindergarten celebrates the 100th day of Kindergarten. It's a rainy day today, so we got it done. Landon cut out all the stripes and glued them on, plus the grass (the block on the bottom right ... it actually sticks up a bit from the paper), and glued all the other pieces on. So we hung it up in his room, and he's a little bit proud (well, so is mommy!).

Uncle Neville and Aunt Mary were here Sat night for a visit. Aunt Mary has a conference in Banff all week, then they're back here Thursday until Sunday again. It was a good visit - Landon still has a sweet spot for Uncle Neville, that's for sure. And after taking his time to check them both our thoroughly, Arlan settled right in to enjoying their company too. I'm really looking forward to Friday - Aunt Mary is going to babysit the boys while Uncle Neville, John and I golf :-D

This pic is from Landon having so much fun in the neighbours blow-up waterslide. I wasn't there that day, John took the boys over. I guess Landon simply climbed up, slid down, climbed up, slid down ... all afternoon. He had a blast!

Arlan stats

Arlan got his 1 year shots on June 24. He was 22 pounds, 30" long (a bit heavier, a bit shorter (??) than the previous weeks appointment with the doc). He was pretty miserable the following day - due to the shots (fever) and he caught Landon's cold too. But neither bothered him much after that, little trooper!

Arlan words...and a tooth

Arlan is starting to say a few words now. Grandpa taught him "birdie" at the farm as they watched the birds out the window. Arlan LOVES birds (any animals really) ... and points at them telling me "birhh!" all day long.
He also calls for da-da-da-da-da in the mornings, to come give him a 'soos'. And the other day John was getting Arlan changed and I could hear: John "Arlan, don't!" Arlan "i bite!" LOL So cute.
Arlan's also getting close to a word for "juice", and "up" (not bup like Landon still says!! lol). We'll see what other words come out in the upcoming days and weeks...

Also Arlan got his 6th tooth - came through Thursday morning. He'd been working at it all the time at the farm, so I'm glad it made it out finally.

Sask Travels

We had such a great trip back to Saskatchewan. Both boys travel very well, and they even behaved (for the most part) in the restaurants!! lol
We made it to Grandma & Grandpa's on the 27. Landon gave Grandpa puppy-dog eyes and got a ride in the grain truck that night (Grandpa was worried the neighbours would think him nuts, driving the grain truck through the fields, etc!!LOL).

Then Sunday we headed to Frontier Days in Swift Current. Well, Arlan and Grandma stayed at the farm - too hot for wee ones, and he would need to be home for bed early anyways, so they spent some quality time together.
We weren't sure if Landon would like the rides, so we bought coupons (not the wristband). Well ... he LOVED the rides. After about 4 rides we were going to buy MORE coupons (of course), Landon pulling me along, saying "I LIKE this place!!!!" So we did some more rides, introduced Landon to corn dogs, avoided the games like the plague, mom ate a caramel apple (YUM!), and a few more rides. Then to Carla and Dave's (well, Jackson and Ryders house according to Landon) for the night. We did make it back to the fair to watch the fireworks with Grandpa though. I wish you could've seen his face (read: I wish I could've captured his expression on film). His eyes were so big, and he was sooooo excited. I think Grandpa had fun watching the fireworks with Landon too!
We spend the night at Carla and Dave's after watching fireworks. Landon outlasted all the other kids ... and many adults too. Our little rockstar! *sigh* but we all had a ton of fun.

Monday was a quiet day - we had lunch at Carla's with Mark and Tanya (so good to see them), then out to the farm where we were all quite sleepy (save Landon of course, who napped on the ride out...). Aunty Yvonne came out to the farm as well, it was good to visit with her too!!
Tuesday we went to Moose Jaw to check out Grandma and Grandpa's house - looking pretty darned good. Then a lunch, and a trip to the spray park which Landon loved again. He sure loves water!! he didn't go in the kiddie pool, but had a blast in the park, especially loving the excavator. Some ice cream on the way out of town, and Landon was fast asleep again. So much so that he didn't wake up when we got home so I put him on the couch thinking Arlan would wake him. Nope - so after another hour on the couch I put him to bed thinking maybe he'd be out all night. He didn't so much as flinch when I put him to bed ... but woke up 30 minutes later full of energy for the night (of course!!). Gotta love that kid! Arlan on the other hand went to bed by 7 (give or take 30 minutes) every night, no matter what had happened during the day. So very different those two!

Then Wed we came home again - it was sure nice to be home again!! I did make a trip back to the Hat Thursday for a funeral Friday morning though. That was a tough day. Thankfully the boys travel well, and they were quite well behaved at Julie's too (sorry about the footstool again ... send us the bill!). Jenay watched the boys Friday morning while I was at the funeral service, and we came back to Calgary. Now there's no travel plans for several weeks, and I'm thankful for it!!