Two Years and still Blogging

I don't know what's been wrong with me lately but i just haven't been wanting to write lately. Sorry future Andrew.

What have you been up to?

We have been going to the science center quite a bit, they have lots of workshops. His favorite one so far was the magic workshop. He now has some neat tricks up his sleeve. We went to a magic store after that to see what they are like, everywhere we stood we were bombarded with magicians wanting to try their newest tricks on us. It was fun. But everything was so expensive.

His friend Anika has been coming over more often and she's slept over a few times. They are so cute together.

This week we had a few great weather days, plus 16c. So we took his bike out and sand toys and played for hrs at a time at the park. It's a good thing we were able to do that for the coming week is going to be cold again. I can't wait for summer..

Good news, Andrew's grandparents sold their condo in Ottawa and they will be moving here (Mississauga) some time in the middle of May. It will be nice for Andrew to be able to see them more often, and he's looking forward to it.

Here' are some pics from the past mth.

Andrew running threw a puddle, his favorite thing to do...


The urban gardens.




Hopefully he'll never be too old to kiss me in public.


Or stop wanting to look at the birds with me.




Meeting his daddy @ the Park.


Friends since they were babies.

Kidney Stone

Apparently i have kidney stones. That's all i know right now. I hope it doesn't hurt to pass. I'm scared.

SORRY

I'm sorry for the huge gap between entries. We have being doing things but i'm really not feeling well these days. I so tired, all the time. Getting that figured out with tests tho. One test is showing protein in my urine. Apparently pee'ing protein is not a good thing. I have been also getting pain in my upper left side ab, i don't know if the two are related or i'm just having muscle pains. To be figured out. In the mean time i will try to catch up. Right now i'm just too tired to.

OHHHH YAAAA

CANADA WINS GOLD IN MEN'S HOCKEY... 3-2.

My Favorite Pic of the Week.

Ok so this is an old pic, taken last year. But i still like it.

What's Up?

Well not a whole lot lately... It's been so cold outside, i rarely even want to step out. Thank goodness we need food or else i don't know if i would ever get out there.

Andrew's been doing his homeschooling everyday. Right now he's doing a unit on Winter. Last week he had a math test and got 100% on it. Not bad considering it's for a grade 1 student and he's still only in kindergarten. He's asking a lot of questions about how things work and where people originally came from and why the dinosaurs and humans didn't live together at the same period. Pretty deep kid. We only made it to the science center once last week, they had a buildings and structures workshop. It wasn't that great. I think they under estimate the abilities of kids brains there sometimes. All they had were blocks, and asked them how big they could make them. So the kids were more interested in that part then learning how buildings actually stand. He got to see his 2 friends Anika and Ethan. Anika lost her 1st tooth the same day and Andrew did (and then she lost another one a few days later). They are exactly 2 weeks apart in age. Ethan, Andrew, Sue and i went downtown to Nathan Phillip Square for the last weekend of WinterFest. They had some really amazing shows there. One from France, called Cosmogonia. If you ever get a chance to see them i HIGHLY recommend seeing them. It was amazing. Even the sound system was out of this world. Cosmogonia is a succession of 12 scenes, the book of Genesis is recounted, played, and danced on a background of projected images portraying the Elements, cascading water and fire. (pics below)... It was very cold out so we didn't stay too long, just long enough to see the show and then we sat in a warming tent and then headed home.

Here's some of my favorite pics from the past week.

Andrew and Anika and their missing teeth.


Goofing around.







Angel of the Apocalypse
Flaming Lotus Girls (from the Burning-man artists. This was amazing.


Andrew and Ethan


This are actual balloons. They were HUGE, this was at the Science Center.


Here are some pics taken of him throughout the week that i like.

Looking intently at a computer game he's been playing all week, called Pajama Sam.




This is his favorite pose when i take pictures of him.. No matter what, he's gotta make this face.


Pure LOVE...




The End.

The Magic of Boys

There is a time from age 5 to perhaps 10 that is perhaps particularly endowed with the Victorian mythology which however false it may be, tugs on the hearts of every parent just a little bit. And then we can move on to the more modern mythology of Steven Speilberg but that’s another day…

Lost Tooth

Well it's official, my baby is growing. He has lost his first tooth today. He's so excited about it. Me? not so much. It's just another reminder that he's not going to stay young forever. sniff.

WOW

Whoops, sorry for taking so long to post.

Compared to last month everything is pretty quiet. No visitors. No Christmas shopping. No wrapping either. No tree taking over the view. No fancy lights or decor. That's all gone for another year.

Sigh.

So then, what have we been doing?

We've been going to the Science center quite a lot. They have workshops for young children during the week. So i have been implementing that with Andrew's homeschooling. On the 7th, they had a work shop on Healthy Foods. Now Andrew will eat granola cereal with yogurt (i have only been trying to get him to eat that for years now), but oh well, at least now he'll eat it. Another thing to add to his VERY small list of things he'll eat. On the 8th they had a Optical Illusions workshop. On the 15th they had a Magnets workshop. On the 26th they had a Dinosaurs workshop. He really LOVED that one. He is starting to talk a lot and is very articulate in his speech. He'll talk for hrs about dinosaurs and Scooby Doo. He's actually got many of the workers there calling him by name now. They all really like him, you can really tell. He's got quite the magnetic appeal.

We've been doing more and more school work this month. He can count to 100. Printed his first sentence (by memory). I will post a picture of that. Learning how to read small sentences. He doesn't really like reading a whole lot so i think i will go slower on that and try not to push it, he'll be ready when he's ready. I don't want him to hate it. He's been learning about dinosaurs (since he likes them so much), i can't get over how much he already knows on them. He knows what a herbivore, meat eaters and omnivores are and which dinosaur eat what. And he knows almost all of the dinosaurs names. For science he is learning all about sound.

Art, he absolutely LOVES drawing. Everyday he sketches pictures of monsters and ghosts. And he's pretty good at it.

One night last week while we were lying in bed before he fell asleep he asked me, mommy, how long did it take for me to come out of my egg? I'm like what??????? Then it dawned on me that he thought he was hatched out of an egg like dinosaurs did.. LOL, too cute.

He's got his first loose tooth. And WON'T stop wiggling it. Another excitement for Andrew.

All in all, he's still the greatest kid in the universe.


Always trying to scare me:


His first sentence... I spoke the words out loud and he wrote what i was saying.


His first loose tooth.

Blog Has Been Made Private

I have decided to make this blog private. Only those i invite will be allowed to view it. Sorry if this has made it more inconvenient for you but i feel that this blog is about Andrew and i don't know if he will appreciate strangers from around the world glimpsing into his life. So for now i think i will wait until he's old enough to make that decision on his own.. It also creeps me out that there are so many people out there that i don't even know looking at his blog..

Sandra

2010

So my the time we hit the next decade Andrew will be 15yrs old. I will be 52 and Don will be 65. Yikes. That sounds so old. lol. Ewww yuck..

So today is the first day of 2010. I think we'll watch the movie 2010, how fitting.

Last night we just stayed home and had a little party, just the 3 of us.. It was good. We played games, and watched a movie.

Today we went to the ROM (royal ont museum).. It was half price today. Then we went and got Andrew's and Don's favorite fries at the chip wagon on Queen St, by Nathan Phillips Square. It was CCCCCCCCOLD out side. Brrrr. It seems like the older i get the colder it feels.. Yuck again.

Thanks for the gift (you know who you are).. You gave us a nice family day.

Anyhoo, i will post some pics from the ROM and then i'm going to watch 2010.

Happy New Years.

This is the subway stop at the museum, it's awesome.


This picture freaks me on 2 levels. One, we are looking at someone that was has been dead for over 2000 yrs and somewhat well preserved. Two, Andrew's reflexion as he looks down at him. Andrew was in front of me, that's his hand there, but his head looks like it's behind the mummies head.


A mummified cat.


An older mummified woman, she's lived about 3000 yrs ago. This is before mummification became well advanced.


I love the new addition to the ROM, they have done a fantastic job on the architect.




And then came the dinosaurs,,, I must admit, i really enjoyed seeing that exhibit.










And then Andrew bacame a paliantalist for a wee while.


And then he got knighted.


And the ROM has some of the nicest rocks and minerals i have ever seen. This was the last exhibit we went into, and by then Andrew was getting tired and cranky. I really wished i could have stayed there longer but oh well, next time i will know to go there first.








What a great start for what's going to become the best year thus far...

It's Christmas Eve

(pitures will be added later)


And all through the house, not a creature is stirring not even a mouse. Well that's because the cats ate them for the pre-Christmas dinner. They wanted to share but.... Ok, let me change that... It's the night before Christmas and all through the house it's totally chaotic. The stockings are hung in our make shift wall unit. But oh how they hang so longing to be filled. Andrew's not dreaming of sugarplum but is running high on and over dose of sugar from the cookies he made for Santa, hopefully the big fat jolly guy will get at least one of them... hmmm but maybe not, cause the other guy that eats them could stand to loose a few pounds.

For all you Nay Sayers

I knew it... The evidence is in :)

The whole research article can be found here.

Socialization not a Problem

But of most importance are these numbers.

When measured against the average Canadians ages 15 to 34 years old, home-educated Canadian adults ages 15 to 34 were more socially engaged (69 percent participated in organized activities at least once per week, compared with 48 percent of the comparable population). Average income for homeschoolers also was higher, but perhaps more significantly, while 11 percent of Canadians ages 15 to 34 rely on welfare, there were no cases of government support as the primary source of income for homeschoolers. Homeschoolers also were happier; 67.3 percent described themselves as very happy, compared with 43.8 percent of the comparable population. Almost all of the homeschoolers—96 percent—thought homeschooling had prepared them well for life.

Santa Claus is here in our Town

And here is the proof :)



And it's that time of year that Toronto's Eaton Center displays their amazing window Christmas displays.



And free outdoor awesome concerts at Nathan Phillip Square while you skate outdoors on their illuminated rink. (Picture is crappy...)



Finishing the evening with SPECTACULAR fireworks with equally amazing music to go with it... Toronto is great.

His New Cut

Here he is with his new cut... I don't like it as much :(

Christmas Pics and Hair

First, Andrew cut a HUGE chunk of his hair off the other day, Don was on daddy duty while i was out. I thought i might be able to work with it but it proved to be unworkable :( ... So i had to cut it last night to make both sides look the same, i also had to cut the back of it because if not he would have had a mullet. NO THANKS. I must admit that i think i did a pretty good job fixing it and he is still as cute as ever.

Pictures, oh good grief, it's a heck of a lot easier to get pictures of my cat Reggy then it is to get of Andrew. I will post the one good pic i got of him (out of hundreds) but i do want to get another one where more of his face if showing. And the lighting is softer. This is before his new hair cut.