Tales From the Minivan

It was decided this year instead of having two separate concerts for the K-5 and 6-8 they would have only one concert! This makes it easier for us parents that have one in Elementary and one in Middle School. Everything was all set, Ciaran would spend the morning with my FIL and we would drive Liam and Mackenzie to school that morning and take Finn with us. Now getting everyone out the door in the morning is always a challenge. I would say it’s probably one of the most stressful things for me, getting the boys strapped into their carseats, making sure that I have everything, and the kids have everything, it always seems that something gets left behind. School Concert day was one of these days…Liam’s backpack with his lunch and dress shoes (of course he insisted on wearing his suit) was sitting right at his launchpad in the front room! I, of course was upset but tried to not let it get to me. I decided the best thing to do, was watch Liam as his class was one of the first to perform, then sneak out and head home to make sure I got back in time for his recess and to see Mackenzie’s class sing. They looked so cute with they antlers they made in class singing Rudolph. Here’s a few shots:

After Liam performed I snuck out and rushed home to grab his backpack and lunch. I also grabbed a change of clothing just in case he wanted to change out of his suit, he replied with a, “No mommy the boys said I looked like the principal!” I guess in Kindergarten this is still a good thing! I ran back up to the gym, only to find out I had just missed Mackenzie’s class! This is honestly the first time I had wished we lived closer to the school. The kids are in French Immersion, and ouir neighbourhood’s school doesn’t offer it, so they have to get bussed to another part of the city. It’s a nice big school (formerly a highschool) with lots of immenities, but can be inconvenient at times. Although I did miss her perform, my MIL got a video of her and I grabbed a few shots of her and one with her friend Joli.

I am officially the mom of a 3 year old and 5 year old. Ciaran and Liam both had their birthdays this past week. We ended up having a family dinner to celebrate both birthdays. Liam was a little bit disappointed with this as he wanted his own party with “his friends”. Unfortunately there is a new policy at his Kindergarten this year that the kids are not allowed to send birthday party invitations to school. I understand the reasoning around it, but if your child us a bus student you never get a chance to meet their friend’s parents. I’m hoping at the Parent Teacher Conferences, I can introduce myself to a few of them, and possibly set up a play date some weekend.

For their party I decided to do a turkey dinner with all of the fixin’s, since I didn’t get to do one for Thanksgiving. It was great as it gave us lots of leftovers for the next few days, and I even made a pot of turkey stock to freeze for soup bases, and I made a Turkey Shephard’s Pie to freeze. I’ve mentioned making this before on our “What’s for Dinner” Podcast. I really like it, as I’ll pull it our in a few weeks, and it’s just like having turkey Dinner without all the work!

After dinner, each of the boys had their own cakes. They have been eyeing these cakes at our local grocery
store for the past couple of years, they are real icecream cones around them, (well the icecream is actually icing, but the cones are real!) so I decided to surprise them with these:

It was nice to have both sides of our family together, and gave me a chance to start talking to my dad about a planning a trip to Walt Disney World for the March Break! He is hoping to join us with his boys who are a year older and a year younger than Mackenzie. We were going to wait another year, but with our strong dollar we thought we’d take advantage of it! I’ll be sure to share some of our plans here.

As well, over the next few entries, I thought I’d share some of our favorite travel tips and moments over the past 5 years.

Happy Birthday my sweet boys! Here’s a few pics of them over the years! I will add them from my other PC soon!

Liam through the Years

Liam at 1 Week

Liam’s First Birthday

Liam’s Second Birthday

Liam’s Third Birthday

Liam’s Fourth Birthday

Liam’s Fifth Birthday

Ciaran Through the Years

Ciaran at One Week

Ciaran’s First Birthday

as well, here’s a VIDEO we took that day:

Ciaran’s 1st

Ciaran’s Second Birthday with Liam

Ciarans’s 3rd Birthday

October 31, 2007

Today was a day of many costumes. The day started off with Liam getting ready for school, He was not happy at all that he wasn’t allowed to wear his costume. They had a rule this year that the younger kids could not wear costumes. Instead they all dressed in Orange and Black for the day. I understand the reasoning behind it, but the little guy was so excited to get that costume on especially since Ciaran and Finn’s had their costumes on for his party at preschool. I decided to drive Liam and Mackenzie out to their school on the way to Ciaran’s party. In the process my diaper bag/backpack got mixed up with Mackenzie’s school bag and I ended u with her school books and her project that was due that day. She had both digital camera’s that were in my bag. After I got Ciaran settled in I hopped back in the minivan with Finn and headed back across town to school to swap bags. Mackenzie’s friends were giggling, that she had diapers and that I was dressed up. Yes I threw together a quick costume that morning as a “Wacky Witch” wearing Black jeans, an orange long sleeved shirt, orange and black striped leg warmers, and black cape, orange Crocs and to top it all off a bright orange witches hat! Sorry no pics of me!

After getting the bag situation sorted out we headed back to Ciaran’s school for his party. He looked so cute as MickeyMouse, and had a great time at his little party. After we left, since he was in a good mood, I though I would bring up getting a haircut. I have been trying since mid-summer to get it cut. In the past week, he’s been called a girl on 3 different occasions. Well when I asked him he finally agreed! Here are the before and after shots!

After lunch, it was our playgroup’s Halloween Party. Liam joined us afterschool, at this point Ciaran felt his Mickey costume was too warm, so he decided he wanted to wear his “Pumpkin Jammies”. It was a quiet gathering, but the boys had a lot of fun!

So while at playgroup I found out that our local Mall was having a Halloween Trick or Treating Event. When Mackenzie was younger I used to always take her there. I liked that she didn’t have to wear a big bulky costume, and it was nice and warm. Mackenzie dressed up as the new Pokemon Trainer named “Dawn”, Finn was a Racecar, well he was in his old infant carseat with a Nascar Cover, and Liam and Ciaran were dressed as Race Car drivers. Well Liam corrected me each time telling them hr was “Actually, a Monster Truck Driver!”

By the time we arrived home, from the mall it was getting fairly late and we didn’t end up with any Trick or Treaters! I now have 3 boxes of snack sized Pringles! Looks like the kids will be getting them in their lunches for a while!

It was a fun but exhausting day, I felt like I spent the entire day in the van! All worth it though, the kids had a great time!

The past seven days have been as absolute BLUR! The whole family has been so busy! I’ll get to the title of this post a little further down so keep reading!

Our busy week started off with last Saturday. Andrew’s good friend got married and both Andrew and Liam were in the wedding party. Andrew being the Best Man and Liam the Ring Bearer. He looked so adorable in his little suit! The funny thing is that I actually bought this suit before he was even born. We were browsing Value Village one day and I spotted it, and figured that at one point he’ll need one to wear, who knew that it would fit him perfectly when that time came upon us! Here are a few pics from the day!

Liam with his “Flower Girl”

All of the Groomsmen- Andrew is behind Liam

Finn at the reception

Next was Ciaran’s first day of Preschool. He has been so excited about starting school for weeks, then he got there and froze up! Poor little guy just did not want me to leave him. There seemed to be a quick window of opportunity and I took it and ran, I guess he cried for a little while but eventually warmed up to and did great! His second day went great, no drop off issues, no tears. Then came day 3. There was a 3^rd teacher there that he had not met yet, and this completely through him off. I stayed with him for about a half an hour but he was just not settling in so we decided to all leave. I don’t want to push him into this if he’s not ready. He’s been attending playgroups with me with him since he was born, but this is the first time I’m not there with him, so I think it may take a little more time for him to feel comfortable with it! Here’s hoping next week goes better!

Thought I’d show a couple of pics from his first day.

Next came Mackenzie’s eleventh Birthday! As we do every year we got out for a family dinner on the evening of her birthday. Let’s just say this one well be a very memorable one! Definitely “BlogWorthy” in my eyes! We decided to go to Pizza Delight, for those of you not familiar, it’s an Atlantic Canadian chain, that has been branching out across the country. When we arrived we were pleasantly surprised that if it’s your Birthday- you “Eat Free” Mackenzie decided that since it was her 11^th Birthday she should get an adult meal, as she no longer qualifies for the Kids Menu! She ordered the Super Donair and Ceasar Salad combo, minus the lettuce and tomatoes.
When the food arrived, it was brought out by another server other than our own, we noticed right away that Mackenzie’s Donair had lettuce and tomato on it and I quickly let this server know it was wrong. She sputtered something about it not being her table, and then proceeded to roll her eyes at us! There were many witnesses as we were a table of 5 adults along with the boys and Mackenzie’s friend. She took the meal away and a few minutes later the proper one was returned with an apology from our server. She did a quality check and asked how I like the pizza I ordered, rarely do I ever say anything if I don’t like the taste of something, but I told her that I just didn’t like the taste of it, the sauce was just too tangy for me. Still hungry I made it known to Kenz that if she was full I’d be happy to finish anything she had leftover for her. She passed me the rest of her Ceasar Salad as she wanted to save room for her Birthday cake. This is when things went down hill.

I started to eat the rest of her Ceasar Salad, and nearly finished it when I saw something odd in the bottom of the bowl in the dressing. Then I quickly realized what it was! An insect! Not a house fly, mosquito or spider, this was a roach the size of my finger nail! Just as I found it the server was clearing our plates and I felt ill almost immediately. She spotted it too , quickly apologized and whisked the bowl away, saying she would speak to her manager. She came back and said that we would not have to pay for the salad. I pointed out that this was my daughters “Free” meal. She then said, I guess there’s not much we can do then! I kept my cool, none of the kids or anyone else in the restaurant were even aware of what had happened and I wanted to keep it that way. Then my mother and MIL spoke up that this was not acceptable compensation and that we wanted to speak to the manager. The manager was not even working, she was calling her at home. We were then offered a coupon for this location only for the same meal and again told they were sorry this was the best they could do as they wash all of their salad and their kitchen was very clean. Not comforting to me at all or my husband, who immediately stopped eating the pizza after seeing the roach. We all let her know that we were disappointed on how this was handled and that the manager should have been there to deal with this.

The next morning I reported this to Pizza Delight’s head office and was told I would be called back by the district manager, that day or the next…3 days later and still no call! GRRR! Here are some of the happier moments of the night!

September 11^th is a memorable day with most people, but it’s a very happy day in our house as Mackenzie celebrates her eleventh birthday this year!
I thought it’ would be nice to share some photos of her on most of her birthdays leading up to her special 11^th!
So here’s sweet Mackenzie through the years!

Almost Age 1 September 1997

September 1998- Age 2

Age 3- 1999 Her Pokemon Party

Age 4- My Little Ladybug

September 2002 Age 6

Age 7- 2003

2004- Age 8

Age 9-2005

Age 10- 2006

September 11, 2007- Age 11

Liam survived his first day as a full-day Kindergartener! He was very excited about riding the school bus to school so Andrew walked him and Mackenzie to the bus stop and I followed them out to the school. It seems that his teacher is sick and was not going to be staying the entire day, I hope this is not too confusing for the kids!
Once I got him settled in he felt right at home, he barely looked up from the toy he was focused on to say goodbye. My little boy seemed so grown up today. When I arrived after school to pick him up for an appointment, he was actually upset to see me! He wanted to take the bus home!

Mackenzie and Liam on the front porch

Lining up for the bus

I’m sick! Yes it’s Father’s Day and I did not get out of bed until noon, poor Andrew! Quickly after getting up, it was decided that we’d have to cancel our big Father’s Day BBQ at our house. I felt really bad seeing this was probably the last time we’d be able to get everyone together before our trip on Thursday, I felt even more sick about all of the food we’d bought for the BBQ that was now thawing in the fridge. Looks like I’m going to be eating lobster for every meal over the next few days!

After we cancelled Andrew decided to take Mackenzie, Liam & Ciaran out for the afternoon then go to his parents for dinner. Before leaving he noticed the van’s hubcap was off, the tire was FLAT! He called roadside assistance and they sent out a truck to install the spare tire. Unfortunately the mechanism under than van to release the tire was ceased, the driver would have to send a flatbed and have it towed.
You’re probably thinking, “That’s awful! What a pain!” While it was a bit of a pain having to take a few trips to get the kids home in Andrew’s mom’s car. I was quite happy to have the car towed to Canadian Tire as I needed to get some brake work done before we left. This was great! Now I can call in the morning and not have to take the boys and wait for it to be finished.

Mackenzie at 10 months and Mackenzie at 9yrs!

Wow the years have really flown by! We had a nice get together at Andrew’s parents yesterday and dinner at East Side Marios. Sunday’s are definitely the night to go with kids as they eat free. Every single table was a family, this made it not as embarrasing chasing Liam down across the restaurant for the 3rd time! After we got home my Mom called and came over for a visit as well. She’s been on the South Beach Diet and has lost a bunch so I dug through my closet and gave her about 6 or 7 pairs of pants, I’ve been trying for ages to get her into lower waisted pants, maybe this was just the way!

I must get started on my Shephard’s Pie for supper this evening, Kenz will be home from school soon and as hungry as a bear!