da boyz... da boyz!

 when looking through the pictures in this post it is easy to discern a central theme.  boys are pretty awesome.  everything except the whining is fun.  reading stories at night is super fun.  i particularly enjoy the tight dr. seuss rhymes, but there are some modern books, like duck in a truck, that are fun to read as well.

 zeke is enjoying moving around and exploring the world.  he loves to eat, loves to play his piano and loves to watch his big brother.  he will smack the food right off the spoon if you arent as fast as a snake.

 reading, playing games on the ipad and licking cars... all on the same bench.  now that's multitasking.

 our friends chris and yael and their new baby boy isaac stayed over last week.  it was great to meet isaac and to spend some time with them.  isaac and zeke had fun interacting on their own level and ty succeeded in not giving either of them a concussion.  chris and yael continued on to a ski trip at red mountain which was pretty stellar.  isaac looks precisely as you would imagine chris to be at that age.

 we have been experimenting with different grocery delivery services.  one of the side benefits: the frozen stuff comes packed in dry ice!  sublimation is fun.

 so is baking.

 today kylie made ty a fort in the living room.  after establishing it as his own personal space, ty proceeded to move all the toys in the room into his fort with him.  i had fun snuggling with him initially, but soon was crowded out by his possessions.  i hope this is not foreshadowing.

 when the fort fell apart it magically transformed into a birds' nest and ty alternately "flew" around the living room saying cheep cheep and knee dropped into the nest to snuggle and play his cars on me.  like i said... fun stuff.

 2 days ago the skies cleared and we visited the beaver dams on the chilliwack river for the first time this year.  it looks different with all the leaves gone, but is still beautiful.  ty loved ripping down the sand path and remembered taking his friends finn and coby there.

 and this afternoon saw us ripping it up in the forest behind our house.  it was wonderful shinrin yoku.  ty is faster than kylie now.  niko is still the fastest.  da boyz, da BOYZ!

Mish Mash

We have had quite a few beautiful sunny days recently and spring is in the air.  Yes easterners you read that correctly, spring is in the air.  It may not necessarily be coming imminently but it's hint is definitely there. 

 On this particular beautiful day, we picked up Subway and headed to the river beach. 

 Here I am telling Marc that I found $5!!  My excited face needs some work. A couple of seconds later I realized it had fallen out of my pocket. 

Here Ty is trying to steal Zeke's pineapple cake from Taiwan.  "Give me back my pineapple cake Zeke!"  Ty was way too slow, Zeke had demolished it in no time.


Here's some recent randoms:

Ty loves little hot wheels.  Actually Ty LOVES little hot wheels.  He calls them his 'little cars' and he takes them everywhere - to bed, to quiet time where he has several bins of other toys, in the bath.  He likes to line them up and Marc found him the other day "sleeping" with his little cars after he had put them all to bed. ;)

Oh the beautifulness.  These two pajama clad boys played outside for an hour wearing only their pajamas.  I love it here!

Ty painting a picture for Auntie Reen's birthday.  He takes after his mother and grandfather when concentrating.  Tongue comes out.

Biking at the gym:

After a lot of bike walking, Ty is now very proficient at the kick bike.  A little too proficient for his mother's liking.  Going down hills and over rocks has become his new M.O.  Thankfully he has also taken to saying, "I don't do big bike jumps till I get bigger mommy. Big bike jumps are scary."  Yes Ty they are.  Very very scary.




On Valentine's Day Ty and I made Valentine's owls, apples and gingerbreads.  My heart cookie cutter was later found under the stairs in storage.  Afterwards we headed to the Fraser as well, not as sunny but still beautiful! Later that night we went out to Bravo for dinner and had a delicious meal of french onion soup, bacon goat cheese salad, salmon with lobster bisque, duck pasta and chocolate mousse and lemon tart.  Mmmm I am hungry just typing that.

Zeke likes to eat rocks.  That gets a smile out of him!

Hope all you Albertans are enjoying your family day today!  We sure have been enjoying our "family days" lately.

courtenay reunion

last weekend we boarded the ferry at horseshoe bay and visited our old friends matt and monique and their kids liam, torr and elise.  they have settled into a very relaxed space in the very relaxed town of courtenay.  all three kids were great with ty and zeke and we fell into old rhythms with old friends within moments.

this was ty's first ferry ride and he fully engaged with all aspects of it.  staring at the ocean, running on the deck, stomping in puddles, running on the car deck, running through the seating area... a ferry ride really breaks up a trip.  its a five hour journey, just like lethbridge to edmonton, but its a lot more fun.

once on the island, on our way north to courntey, we stopped just outside parksville to check out the beach.  we plan to stay there for a few days in april and were excited to find lots of fun rock and sand tidal formations.  ty takes to rock running naturally.

matt and monique are thriving in courtenay.  their kids are loving school, they are currently involved in a project called "we can" based on a song by jesse ruben and the singer flew out from the states to visit the schools involved and see the town.  he made a heartwarming music video at liam and torr's school and both of them are in it!  he also wrote an excellent and honest blog post about the experience from his perspective.  good for courtenay.  no wonder we wanted to live there.

ty and elise are very close in age and got along great.  they enjoyed a lot of the same things.

 

liam and torr valiantly led ty in adventurous activities.  he enjoyed tagging along with them and they cheerfully engaged with him and called hi ty-fighter after the ultramaneuverable spaceship of star wars fame.  fits with the hood.

a wonderful comfortable trip.  we are excited to return soon.  courtenay is beautiful and the bike trails there are calling already.

our ride home on the ferry was just as enjoyable.  we were comfortably early and enjoyed a coffee and half price breakfast sandwich while playing at the park.  on the boat we sat in the sunshine, ate chocolate covered cherries and almonds and looked for dolphins.

great road trip.  thanks matt and monique for an awesome weekend!

kids on the carpet

february has been rainy but warming up.  we are still loving our window seat.  ty has been more cuddly recently.  last night i went in to check on him in bed and he looked up and said "daddy i want snuggles" so i climbed in with him and snuggled him to sleep.  highlight of my year so far.

a few days ago kylie was putting ty in his pajamas and zeke took a few minutes to play with ty's blanket and some cars in peace.  ty has made it his mission to deny zeke any toys whatsoever.  this has become more stressful for him since zeke learned to crawl.  now ty is constantly running ahead of zeke, gathering up cars and stuffed animals, or just throwing them into the corners if zeke is catching up.  anyways, zeke was super cute all candid on the carpet so i grabbed the camera and took a few pictures.

"the zeke"

i love this carpet.  we bought it in goreme, turkey in the dead of winter when we were travelling and exploring cappadocia.  we stayed in a rest house carved into a rock.  it was cold and snowy so we sought shelter in a carpet store.  they gave us wine, we looked at carpets...  suleman the owner brought out this one from his personal collection and all the others we had looked at were off the table.

 we still got a great deal b/c it was the dead of winter and there was no one around to buy carpets.  suleman needed money to finance the hotel he was building, and he liked kylie.  nowhere since have we found a carpet anywhere as nice as ours.  sorry to brag, but we really really love this carpet.  zeke has spit up on it, but it came out fine.  they are made to be abused.  this one was handknotted by a turkish woman near the border with iraq for her dowry sometime in the 70s.  i suppose she never got married which is too bad, but worked out well for us!

"did i just spit up on mom and dad's favourite carpet???  must have been someone else!"

here's ty after getting his pajamas on.  "zeke wasnt just playing with my cars, was he??"

ty has developed a fondness for white spot breakfast burgers to match my own.  i love the breakfast club, mmmmmm.... i could eat it every day.  good thing triple o's is waaay across town.  if i am taking ty to canadian tire, we have been stopping together for breakfast burgers first.  then to BC liquor store, then canadian tire.

kylie's dad greg recently upgraded ty's rainsuit.  the new one is blue instead of yellow and initially ty was not a fan.  after playing in the rain for a while and staying nicely dry, he was converted.  our friend jarrid saw these outfits and was amazed.  do they make them for adults?  that would be awesome!