Group Therapy?

Maybe it really is the mother's fault after all. Maybe my children will one day sit together in a group therapy session, telling their shrink all about the time their mother stuck them out on the front step in just a pull up, no shoes or coat, and told them to go find another house to sleep at because they were no longer allowed to stay at this one. I can justify to you 100 ways why he deserved to be out there, and I can tell you every other approach I've tried to get them all to stay quietly in their bed. But I know it's wrong...and I feel guilty and wonder what kind of psychological damage I'm doing to them. But can I also just tell you, that it is damn quiet in that room right now? And we're living moment to moment here...especially when sleep is on the line. So I will set aside my guilt, strategize a more humane approach for tomorrow, and be satisfied that I accomplished my task for the evening, which is to make them sleep. Done.

In more exciting news, Sydney got into the French Immersion program at Highland Public School. It was our first choice of schools, primarily because they have MANY sections of kindergarten, and simply having an older sibling enrolled in FI at the school, grants the boys the right to go there as well. At least for JK/SK. The large number of kindergarten classes will allow us to split the boys into seperate classes, but still have them in school on the same days. Phew!! And trust me, seperate classes is really their best chance of success! Did I say best? I meant only.

Just wanted to share a little colourful springtime artwork with you all. Sydney and I decided to paint up the dining room window and patio doors to 'encourage' the sun to work a little harder at bringing on spring. This is a nice note to end on...makes me look like a nicer mom. But really...wouldn't the photo have been a truer picture of life in this house if it had someone serving a time out on the other side of the glass? LOL! Okay...that wasn't nice.

Rather than post a bunch of pics from February/March this time around, I'll just share a link to them. They are on Facebook, but you don't have to join Facebook to look at them!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=286298&id=524481093&l=3942f4a4f7

I never liked 'springing forward'...

So, this time change isn't really working out for me...I don't need extra daylight after supper. I'd prefer pitch black...if you want to flick the light on the moon too, that'd be fine. My kids were all in bed before 7pm prior to this special daylight savings event. And so it seems reasonable that they are pushing me out to 8pm. But shouldn't it also stand to reason that they would wake up an hour later? Because I can tell you one thing, they sure were not getting up at 4:30am before the time change, but 5:30 is a time I've seen too often in the last week!

So, maybe it's not the time change...because the girls are sleeping in. The boys have been given added incentive to keep their pull-ups dry overnight...so 5:30am is more of a nature call than a wake up call. But just you try to convince three groggy boys (standing directly outside of a sleeping baby's room) that it's not time to get up. They aren't quiet at the best of times...urgh! This is the trouble with 3 boys in one room...nobody just gets out of bed quietly to pee...they open the door (I know...I unlocked it! Crazy eh??), and then stand at the top of the stairs and cry 'my pee is coming!!!' Did I ever mention how much easier my life was when these boys were in diapers? I think I started a top ten reason list of why diapers were better...I should go revisit that....

Oh hang on now...

Wait a minute! There is a new edittor! I was a bit disappointed to find that the posting 'experience' was exactly the same as it had been 3 years ago. However...my settings were also the same as they were 3 years ago. Let's try again, shall we??

Experimenting with some pics...


Trip to Westfield Heritage Village with my friend Janis and her kids, along with my niece Jessica. Oh..and I traded Jamie for Austin for the day too!

hehe - worth a try, right??

Okay...now that was more like it! Those pictures went right where I told them to go! Now we're cookin'!!

Alright, I'm still not committing, but this looks more promising!

Do I have it in me to blog?? Might just try it...

Well, this won't be a long post...I'm just refreshing my memory...and well, let's face it...it's been almost 3 years since I last posted, so maybe just maybe, I might need to relearn. Somedays there is just more to say then a facebook status update..and believe it or not, the whole world isn't on facebook! So...it would just be nice to give this another try...


So while I'm experimenting here, I'll just post a picture or two...after all, Jamie turned one last month and the Held Family blog doesn't show any signs of miss Jamie anywhere :)

Jamie's birthday was pretty uneventful. The big kids (OMG...they are 'big kids'!!) threw her a birthday party...meaning they threw balloons at her while they sang parts of 'happy birthday' to her. It was super cute! They also make cupcakes, which was great fun! I have to say, I love having a big enough family that we can have a party, without having a party!

So glad to see some spring weather coming. Jamie can actually get outside and sort of enjoy herself! The big kids are all over being outside, with the condition that there be mud. If there isn't mud to be found, surely no fun can be had, right?

Well, this is a decent first attempt to re-enter the blogging world. I'll hold off declaring myself a blogger again until I've posted more than once, okay? Ha!

:)

It's been so long....

I've gotten lazy....well, not so much lazy as busier. Working full time is busy enough, but when you come home to this full household....sheesh...it's lucky I have time to brush my teeth! Anyway, my laziness around blogging comes not so much from not wanting to write something, as not wanting to wait for all the pictures to load up. I can only post about 5 pictures at a time and it takes FOREVER. Not to mention the fact that if the pictures are too big, it times out and I have to go and shrink the pics and start again. So, I've been doing a lot of posting on Facebook and not so much on here. Today I came up with a new solution....I'll just post a public link to the Facebook pictures and you can go see them (without joining Facebook)!! Good thinking right??
Hopefully that gives me a bit of a chance to blog more often....in case anyone is still looking :)

So, it's been 4 months since I last posted....so much has changed! Not only can they walk, they can run! And they can climb!!! And they LOVE to climb!!! They started a gymnastics class in September, and apparently it inspired them to get as high as possible at every opportunity. Sydney is in gymnastics too and it's amazing how much she's progressed also. Today Sydney started swimming lessons at the YMCA in a class with kids only (no parents allowed!). She LOVED it!!

Here are a lot of links to some recent pictures (newest to oldest):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=43915&l=abfa6&id=524481093

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47960&l=572f5&id=524481093

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46956&l=18585&id=524481093

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=44347&l=048c0&id=524481093

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=44345&l=ff036&id=524481093

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=41400&l=d9935&id=524481093

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40138&l=5da2f&id=524481093

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39127&l=2dda7&id=524481093