At last

Let us recall where we were coming from. Remember this? This is what the basement looked like before the renos.
This is what it looks like now.


Not bad, ey? It's not entirely finished. The furnace room is still jammed with boxes, but it's usable. We spent most of this rainy Saturday in the basement. Max loved his new play area. Part of the reason we spent most of the day downstairs was because our upstairs was void of furniture. The furniture you see in the basement was in our living room. So now our living room looks like this.
Wow. That couch is huge! I am completely dwarfed by it and Marty is in the lap of luxury. So there you have it. We have adult furniture in our living room (which Max is already enjoying as you can see) and we have an awesome rec room basement.

Happy days.

My guys

Nothing makes me happier than seeing my two guys in a laughing fit.

Thanksmas 2008

Thanksmas has come and gone. The weather was spectacular and the turkey was delicious. What more could we ask for.

Max didn't nap on the way down, and wouldn't go down at Tammy's. And can you blame him? Look at the mother load!Max did very well with lots of clothes, a cool aviator winter jacket, some MegaBlocks Cars stuff and the Fisher Price easel. Now all we need is a basement for it to all go into (by this weekend my friends!). Marty and I did very well this year too. It's great now that the kids are into making stuff. We got brownies (which are delicious!), chocolate dipped spoons (which are coming with me to work for my hot chocolate), cookie mix (haven't done those yet), some flavoured oil, bread dipping spices and potato soup in a cup (which is also coming to work with me). Not bad, ey?

What did I end up doing? I made Crispix mix. Two different kids, a sweet and a savoury. Big hit. Did you know that there are a ton of Chexmix recipe options (Crispix is the Canadian version). Check out the website. There are even micriwavable options!

Oh, what do you think of Max's pumpkin hat? I love it and so does everyone who sees it. Karen knitted it for him. She also does the most adorable strawberry and watermelon hats.

Back to Thanksmas. This is where you could find Max, most of the time. With his big cousin Mitchell. I don't know who was enjoying who's company more. But Max couldn't get enough of him.

There is a new park near Tam's that is very cool. It has all these musical instruments. They were a little high for Max, but he still really enjoyed himself, especially on the slide.

That night we went to see Mitchell's hockey game. Max loved the clappers and running along the boards yelling "Hockey!" Marty was in heaven.So there you have it. Another Thanksmas come and gone. We came home on Monday and had another turkey at Meredith and Ron's. Another beautiful day and lots of adults and kids to entertain Max. A wonderful way to end a great long weekend.

Apple picking

This morning we set out to Canamore Orchards to do some apple picking. The website said they had u-pick until mid-October. I thought about calling ahead of time, but each time I thought of it, it was after hours. Do you see where this is going?

The orchard is out near Embrum, which is about a 40 minute drive. Max napped all of the way (seriously, he was asleep before we hit the end of our street). Great start if the day. We get inside to pay, NO MORE U-PICK. Well, we had decided to go to a place that had a bunch of extra stuff, since Max wouldn't have had much to do with the picking. Things like mazes, train rides, wagon rides, you know, fun stuff. So we decided, hey! We're here. Let's do it. $15.00 dollars later (yep, 1-5) we went through the door expecting some fall fun. What did we get? Some owners how were pretty rude, some pathetic mazes, a pig that did not look very healthy and a goat that ate my hair. Seriously! The goat took a chunk of my hair, and left some sort of goo. Did the kids have fun? I think so. Will we go back next year when the u-pick is on? Not a chance.

To see the bright side, we were outside for a couple of hours, the kids walked around and had fun, and we got a couple of cute pictures.