Saanich Fair 2008

Max watching the horses:
Sam with his Mom:

William and Sam ride the tractor:
Yesterday we took the boys to the Saanich Fair. We met up with Lori, Peter and Aubrey, as well as Lee-Ann, Scott, Jack and William. It was lots of fun, with rides at the midway, petting of farm animals, tractors, horses and all manner of agricultural fun!

Sam and Aubrey riding the snake:

Happy Birthday Darcy!

Here are a couple shots of Darcy on her Birthday. It is easy for her to get lost in the shuffle of Sam's birthday the day before, but hopefully we made her feel a little special today. Max brought her flowers this morning, which was super cute!
Now we are out in Victoria at grandma and grandpa's while I work out of the office. Here is Max at the house:
Here is Sam watching the start of Barrack Obama's speech tonight at the convention. Is that a 'rock' sign he is doing?

This morning when I left for work I said "I love you..." to Sam and he asked me: "Is that becuase I had a super long sleep?" Cute stuff!

Sammy is three!

Sammy turned three today! Hard to believe the day is here already... We had a nice party with mostly family and a few friends. We tried to keep the kids games simple:

Songs
Pin the tail on the donkey
Pinata (with a modern twist)

Here is Sam blowing out the candles on the awesome train cake:


Max loves sliding - he went up and down this slide about 30 times:
Baby needs a new pair of shoes! Allie and Claire went out shopping and brought home these awesome NB shoes for 10 bucks!
Molly having a good time with Grandma:
The panic to pick up all the candy out of the pinata. Sam was racing for all of the candy necklaces - but he just wanted to get them all so he could give them to everyone - so sweet:

Thanks everyone for coming out to Calgary to make this a special day for Sam. Auntie Sherrie was able to come up from Portland, plus all four grandparents made it up from Victoria and Salmon Arm.

Almost three!

Sammy is almost three - only one more day! Here is the makings of a train cake. Stayed tuned for the final decorated freight train!

He's on to us

Darcy was baking some cookies in the oven and when I was about to put Sam to bed she needed to take out the cookies. She had the oven mitt on one hand and was sort of lingering waiting for Sam to go upstairs so he wouldn't get excited about the cookies. Then he spotted the oven mitt:

'Mommy - what's that?'
'Oh nothing, Sam'
'Is it an oven mitt?'
'Yes'
'What are you doing with it? Getting something from the oven?'
'No - I'm just putting it away'
'But your have it on...'
'No - I'm just holding it'
'No - you have your hand in it...'

You just can't get anything past them :)

Tom Campbell's Hill

Tom Campbell's Hill is an off leash area in NE Calgary (Bridgeland) where we used to take Lucy and Bear. I thought the kids would enjoy running around, and I could get some photos at the same time. Right on both counts! I've always been looking for an area where you can get low and shoot back up the slope to get a nice blue sky behind the kids - here are some shots from today:

Salsa!!!

Dawn, Darcy and Allie were up well past their bedtimes last night, but here is the result of their efforts! Now that's a lot of Salsa - in case you ever wondered how much Salsa you could get out of 80lbs of tomatos...

Kelowna round 2

More photos of our trip to Kelowna...

Sam swinging:
Max and Lily riding the trike:
Rogan and Lily watching TV:
Sam and Andrew pulling with all their might:
Rogan laughing while he eats some Smarties:

The Kelowna Beach House

Ryan's parents were kind enough to have the lot of us down in Kelowna. Here are a few images of the several house they have on the property - and a glimpse of more fun photos to come:

More funny things...

The last night we were in Salmon Arm, Sam said the funniest thing. He was on the toilet, and I wanted to get him back in bed, so I asked him how long he was going to be. He said what sounded like "I'll be four friggin' minutes." I said "Pardon me?" and he replied back: "I'll be three minutes."

Later it sounded like he said friggin' again when he dropped something and I asked him who talks like that - he said "You do, Daddy..."

It figures - friggin' kids pick up on everything you say...

He is also starting to present options for us at night: "Dad - tomorrow, if you want, we can go to Starbucks and get a coffee and a hot chocolate. If you want..."

Beginning of holiday: Salmon Arm

The beginning of our 10 days holiday started with a drive down to Salmon Arm. Dawn, Ryan and the boys travelled with us and stayed the two days in Salmon Arm. We took the boys down to the park, swam and Grace and Mike's and otherwise show the boys the town (and the hills!). We even introduced Ryan to the mayor!

Andrew running on the wharf:
Sam pulling the trailer on his bike. He is really getting the hang of the tricycle:
Max - looking mischievous as usual:Perhaps this is what he had in mind:
Sam riding a motorcycle with Grace: