We got a lot of snow ...

38 cm of snow fell on Sunday on the Montreal region, along with the other 30 cm we got 2 weeks ago. We have shoveled the driveway four times so far, and there's still a small part left to do. Mr Plow created a 4x6 feet wall on our driveway. I shoveled it today, it was so hard it three my back.

Suzanne went to shovel with Sabrina tonight. Our little girl has a lot of fun on the "mountains" that are easily twice her size. At one point, Suzanne turned to shovel, looked, and Sabrina had disappeared. She fell backwards from the top of the mountain.

"I slid down like a snowball" -- Sabrina

I promise some pictures. Btw it's still snowing.

"No not that" -- Mathieu

Mathieu is 15 months and his vocabulary has exploded in the past 2 weeks. He now knows about 40 words, from normal words like "ball", "that", "doux-doux" to tonight's assemblage: "No not that" he said when Suzanne pointed to something he wanted.

We are relatively sure he meant "yes that", but since his favorite words are now "no no no", well ...

The lion and the bee

This is the story of the lion and the bee

A bee came to a lion.
"Are you like me" asked the bee.
"Do you have a large crowning mane like mine?" asked the lion
"No" said the bee
"Do I have small fluttering wings like yours?" asked the lion
"No" said the bee
"Do you have four strong legs like like mine?" asked the lion
"No" said the bee
"Are you big like me?" asked the lion
"No" said the bee
"Then I must not be like you" concluded the lion.

"But..." said the bee
"Do you smile like me when you're happy" she asked
"Yes I do" said the lion
"And do you talk with others like I do" asked the bee
"Yes I do" said the lion
"And are you happy like me when you eat good food" she continued
"Yes I am" said the lion
"And do you enjoy the sun's rays as I do" asked the bee
"Yes I do" said the lion

"So..." the bee said.
"Maybe you don't look like me, but you are like me" she concluded.

"Martin"

no no no

Mathieu was really good with "yes" now he's just learned how to say "no". Each time he would see the doctor (great doctor at the Children's btw) he would cry and shake his head yelling "no no no".

This morning Suzanne was alone with Mathieu:
"Are you hungry?"
Head shakes up and down
"Do you want some cereals?"
"No no no"
He points to the table where we left the St-Hubert boxes last night because of exhaustion...
"Chicken" he says
"There's no more Mathieu"
He starts crying:
"no no no"

Full weekend ...

Saturday morning:
Suzanne and Thelma go shopping, Martin stays home and plays with kids

Saturday afternoon:
We bring Thelma to the airport for her trip to B.C. and drive to knowlton for Zach's birthday. Really fun party, felt like moving back to knowlton. Kids are exhausted, going to bed almost 2 hours after their usual time. Parents are exhausted but enjoy a bit of time alone before passing out.

Sunday morning:
Suzanne goes to work Martin stays home and plays with kids

Sunday afternoon:
Mathieu's first trip to emergency, opened eyebrows, a few millimeters from needing stitches instead got glued. Incident happens at 13:15, we're at the Children's before 14:00, we leave the place at 18:00. Coming back home our 14 months old boy passes out and we order some Chicken on the way (St-Hubert). Food arrives a bit after us, we go to bed and Sabrina and Martin pass out.

Growing up part II

It began with mama, then maman, and then mommy.

Now Sabrina calls Suzanne: "mother"

"Can I have some juice, mother?"

Growing up part I

We were in bed this morning and Sabrina was lying on me naked, and I was tapping her bum.

"Very soon I won't be able to tap your bum anymore"

She turns around and starts tapping her bum...

"No papa, you see, I can tap my bum"

Farter Nosepicker

It is the story of Farter NOSEPICKER,
who farted every time he picked his nose.
One day, Farter NOSEPICKER, picked a bogger as big as his head,
and then farted all day long ...

Farter NOSEPICKER is no more.
He has no more boggers, and no more farts.

2nd snow

We didn't get a break this week. This morning I was supposed to bring the car to the garage to have our winter tires put on. When I opened the door it was pure snow coming in mixed with freezing rain. Once again I worked from home. I like to work form home but I like to work from the office too. It rained (freezing rain that this) all day. Tonight before giving the kids a bath we made a fire in the fireplace and Sabrina had popcorn. Even if Matt was all over the place, it was very pleasant.

I really enjoyed having Saby on me on one side with the popcorn bowl on the other while we looked at the fire.

"We're going in the backyard to see the winter" -- Sabrina

I opened the door to go to work early this morning and I was hit by a snow storm. Snow was falling horizontally in big gusts of winds and there was a lot of beautiful snow all over the place. Needless to say I decided to work from home. Traffic is usually very bad in the first snow.

Sabrina just couldn't wait to go outside and "see the winter". They're out now. I've been working since 6:00am so I figure it was worth it to take a pause to enter this.

A little dance

So both kids started to dance on the table and that was so cute. Mathieu (13 mos) and Sabrina (40 mos) are just so cute dancing, we had to insert that video in the blog.

Halloween

Sabrina and Suzanne went trick and treating while Matthew and I gave out candies. He was quite a charmer saying bye to everyone leaving. Sabrina had a great time and collected tons of candies that had to be sorted afterwards to remove anything that may or did contain peanuts. For a good week afterwards she was always asking for a "Halloween Surprise".

Ecomuseum Visit

We had a family outing to the Ecomuseum in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and we all had a great time. This is one of the nicest little zoos I've been to. Most of the animals in the zoo have been rescued or were born there and cannot be returned to the wild. An amazing place.

The deers came very close to us. The otters loved to give a show by jumping in the water, coming out and climbing on the rock to look at us. And it doesn't show, but that bald eagle is about the same size as Mathieu.

Mathieu's birthday

Our little boy turned 1 year old on October 12th. We first had a nice little birthday here at our home with Melanie, Francois and Benjamin. Here are some pictures:

Then we had a family celebration at Mom's place. It was really fun and we had a great time (Mom's gift was amazing, like Sabrina's).

His first no

Mathieu was really good at saying yes with his head. "Do you want more food?" He'll shake his head vigorously. Well this morning I asked him if he had had a good dodo, which he understood as "do you want to do a dodo". Of course he shaked his head vigorously from left to right. This was his first non-verbal no.

"Dina" is gone

I knew it was going to happen one day but Sabrina can now pronounce her full name, very nicely. She used to call herself "Dina". She'll always be my little "Dina". I love you honey... (M)

Cereals and chocolate milk

"So what do I do next Sabrina"
"Poor the cereals in the bowl"
"ok what next"
"Now poor the milk in the sippy-cup"
"Ok and now?"
"Put some chocolate milk.... wow that's a lot of chocolate milk"
"There you go, so what next?"
"Now I go down to watch TV, cowboy!"

From Sabrina:

Sitting on the toilet, almost falling in:

"One day I'm going to fall in, and you'll never see me again!"

From Sabrina:

"Maman, you're the most fabolous cake maker"

Today ...

So I show up at the doctor's office today for an appointment I made two months ago. I have this cold that just won't go away and a sore on my side which is persistent as well, and it's time to take care of it. I am told that my appointment has been cancelled, that I was called two weeks ago and that the next appointment will be at the end of November. So basically, the idea is that I'm cancelled two weeks before an appointment and told it will take another two months before I can see my GP for a physical...

There's something wrong here. Am I going to be cancelled two weeks before my next appointment and be told that the next one will be in February. You know I could do this with Revenue Canada... "I'm not going to pay my taxes now but I'll pay you in two months"...

I don't know if you know but Dan redid his entire house. He had this little home on a small land. He took it, moved it forward and then created a full basement for it, doubling the size. There's still a lot of work to be done, but the thing is, he's done a lot of it himself to save money. Now we don't have that much time. Most of the time not spent on family life for me is spent working and I don't want to lose what little time I have with my adorable kids so we've decided to ask Dan to give us a hand with some renovs. One important one was the shower that was leaking in the kitchen ceiling. Dan was able to figure out where the problem was, fix it and then re plaster the ceiling in a 1/4 of the time it would have taken me, and I'm not sure I would have done such a good job anyway. Thanks Dan, it was fantastic work.

http://www.48valoiswork.blogspot.com/

This way I get to spend more time with Suzanne, Sabrina and Mathieu. We got to see Max one day this week and it was great. He was real nice to his younger siblings and even Mathieu was warming up to him. Sabrina was happy, it had been so long since she'd seen him. He's doing good. Some may say he spent too much time in front of video games and computers when he was smaller but he turned out okay. School and work are going well and I'm real proud. Sabrina is also in school, in an interesting kind of daycare/pre-kindergarten inside a college where she made herself a friend called Sarah. The class is used as a teaching environment for students who want to become teachers or daycare workers. Sabrina likes it so much we have to be careful not to tell her too early she's going to it or she'll be waiting at the door all day. She's there on Mondays and Wednesdays. She's integrated quite well and tends to do so when there are other kids involved. Once someone told us that because we weren't putting our kids in daycare they would be anti-social... Yeah right.

Then again that's the first questions families here get when someone sees you have a kid: nice kid, got a place in daycare yet?

What happened to raising your kids at home? That's the way my mom did it and we turned right.

I have nothing against daycare except for when it's used for parents to dump their kids.

Mathieu is very friendly and charms everyone he sees. He now walks really well and is very proud of the way he walks. He turned eleven months two days ago but sometimes I forget he's not even one yet. I tend to treat him a lot older then he really is, poor little guy. I think I've done this with all my kids. I'm not a strong believer in talking like a baby to your kids.