Sicko.....

Ben has had a cold for about a month, which has developed into a horrible chesty cough.  It sounded worse today and he said his throat and eyes were hurting him, so I decided to take him to the walk-in clinic to get it checked out.  He has an infection in his right ear, severely inflamed sinuses and bronchial pneumonia.  I'm glad I decided to take him.  Now we just have to wait for the antibiotics to take effect and hopefully he will soon get better

Christmas Day 2013

We had another successful Christmas Day. The kids slept in until almost 8 am, so a little later than usual, thank goodness.  Of course, Ben couldn't wait to open all the presents.  I didn't get them too many things this year, but it seemed to go down OK

The "big present" this year was electric scooters.  Ben has wanted one for about four years and we finally relented-mostly because Maggie is now old enough to have her own plus they were on sale this year!!!  We went up to Tilles Park to try them out....

Jan and Julie came over for dinner and the kids opened their presents while we were waiting for the food to be ready

Sam grilled beef tenderloin again this year-thank goodness it was warm enough for the grill to stay hot!!!

A Winter Wonderland indeed

Even though we have no snow and ice, it is very cold here. Definitely a Winter Wonderland as Tilles proclaims. We walked (I walked, Ben and Maggie rode their bikes) to Tilles to feed the ducks.  I keep all the crusts from the lunches and we take them up when we get enough

Maggie loves all animals and never misses an opportunity to interact with them

I'm glad that Ben still does things like this with us.  I know it won't be long before he considers himself too old

The ducks were happy to see us.  There were about 30 of them

Nativity play

Some of the kids at church did a nativity play on Sunday.  One of Maggie's friends wrote the play, she is 11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ita6w5JYgG4
There was a short break in the proceedings while they got their costumes!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpcYoN2Blnk&feature=c4-overview&list=UUAOWX-wOARFYsMlXtYv82vA

Almost as tall as me......

I took Ben for his latest growth assessment today.  He has finally reached 5 ft, he will be as tall as me soon!!!!  He has grown 4.5 inches in the past year and moved from 10th to 50th percentile.  The doctor is concerned that he is now growing too quickly (never thought I'd say that) and will stop growing before she wants him to.  She thinks he'll end up being around the 10th percentile because he will slow down soon, but that would still make him 5 ft 6 in, which is at least 8 inches taller than he would have been without growth hormone.

Ben's band concert 2013

Took some video of Ben's band concert last week.  You can see his head bobbing in the third video-he's right in the middle.  I think they are pretty good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgKPh8h875c&feature=c4-overview&list=UUAOWX-wOARFYsMlXtYv82vA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnbjp-dyDpM&feature=em-upload_owner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx76KIixhFI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUAOWX-wOARFYsMlXtYv82vA

Justin Spring Invitational 2013

Sam took Ben to Champaign, IL for the Justin Spring Invitational gymnastics meet this weekend.  He did pretty well and came home with a bunch of medals.  He was 5th overall out of 15 boys in his age category.
His scores were Floor 9.0 (7), Pommel 8.8 (5), Rings 8.5 (5), Vault 9.0 (12), PBars 9.0 (5), High Bar 9.2 (7).  He was  happy and that's all that matters.  Sam said it was an easy drive, despite the fact that they had 8 inches of snow up there and apparently they don't plough the streets at all!!!!

Hudson music night 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m_vF9oq9fE&feature=c4-overview&list=UUAOWX-wOARFYsMlXtYv82vA

Finally, Hudson has a decent music teacher.  The music night this year was great, the kids all sung well, they had great choreography and the music was an appropriate choice.  Maggie was fabulous, really got into the singing this year.  The video isn't great, but it was the best I could do....

Garden Glow 2013

The Gardens have finally broken down and gone the way of everyone else-lights for the holidays. Of course, they did a spectacular job, just like they do with everything!!!!  Arline had got us tickets for Members-Only night, but it was so busy we couldn't get near the place and it was so cold we weren't really in the mood to fight the crowds.  We went on Saturday night and the weather was so much better, we definitely made the right decision.  

These are lights displayed on the roof of the tram station, I would not have noticed them if Ben hadn't been taking a picture of them, but they were really cool

The Climatron was amazing, but we could not go inside it

Family photos, should be our Christmas card this year!!!!!

Nice Christmas trees

This was our favourite tree

Maggie in the tunnel of light....

Creepy blue tree, token acknowledgement to Halloween!!!!

Ben and I spent ages trying to get a picture of the tree and reflection

Linnean house lit up

Christmas tree cutting 2013

One of our yearly rituals is to cut our Christmas tree with Molly and Tim each since.  We have been going on Thanksgiving weekend every year since Megan went to college in Nebraska.  The weather was so much nicer than we thought it was going to be, we were very lucky.  We went to Pea Ridge, we've been going there every year for a while.

Ben immediately chose this tree to cut down.....

but then I thought we should get this one because it wasn't as dense.

The kids wanted to take their picture with bunny ears, so I told them they could as long as I got a good one later.....

and here it is.....

Another tree-cutting ritual is getting kettle corn!!!!

A rare picture of Sam and Ben together

Ben is getting so tall, he's catching up with me, but he's standing on his toes here!!!!

We got the tree up immediately (of course).  Turns out that we should have gone with Ben's choice of tree because the one I picked has a trunk like a Curly Wurly.  Sam had to cut a couple of feet off the bottom because we could not get it in the stand and have it being straight.  Even with a chunk cut off the bottom, the tree stand is still at its maximum capacity at keeping it upright!!!!

The kids get so excited about putting the tree up, but by the time we get the lights and some of the ornaments on, they run out of steam and I end up doing it!!!

Thanksgiving 2013

This is the first time in years that there has only been the 4 of us for Thanksgiving, so I decided to dispense with the huge turkey dinner and make pizza.  Since Ben's allergic to turkey, I'd have to come up with an alternative anyway.  I said I'd just make pizza because we like that best of all.  Actually, Ben goes back and forth on whether he likes my pizza, so even that was suspect....

The kids were outraged that I wasn't going to cook Thanksgiving dinner-Ben just could not believe it and Maggie really wanted a turkey leg!!!  I told them that I'd much rather spend the day with them than stand in the kitchen cooking, not sure if they were convinced or not.  Instead of cooking, I spent a long time doing stuff around the house, including 9 loads of laundry.  I changed the sheets on all the beds, including Caroline's, and washed them all.  Ben cleared out his desk and threw away a bunch of stuff-I told him that's what I like to do best!!!

Sam and I did the Kirkwood/Webster Turkey Trot in the morning and I was happy that I beat my best time by 25 sec (30:18 this year), even though I walked some of it and felt I didn't do that well.  We went for a walk in Tilles Park in the afternoon and the kids were reluctant at first, but came round once we got going.

Because we didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving, I started getting ready for Christmas-put all the Fall stuff away and got the boxes of Christmas stuff out.  We are going to cut our tree today, so we'll be doing Christmas in style!!!!

A good one with accents

We were watching Skyfall the other night and everyone kept calling Judi Dench "Ma'am"
Ben:  What are they calling her?
Me:  They are calling her Ma'am (English accent).  It's the same as you saying "Yes Ma'am (American accent)" over here
Ben:  Then what do they call their mothers?
Me:  They call them "Mum" not "Mom".  We can hear the difference where you can't......

Hiking at Shaw Nature Reserve

As the kids get older, our routine changes. There are places we used to go all the time that we don't ever go to any more. I cannot remember the last time we were at the zoo or just went to the Gardens to see what's in bloom (or run in and out of the fountains).  However, I can still persuade them to go to Shaw Nature reserve, even when it's too cold to go in the river.  Caroline was dressed in several layers and wearing a hat, Sam is in a short sleeved T shirt-it illustrates what the day was like-cool but nice and sunny!!!!

I love taking pictures of my family walking away from me.  Maggie and Sam have a special bond, she loves her Daddy.  She is ALWAYS chattering about something!!!!

The kids made Caroline walk across the stream bed, they accept everyone that stays with us and they treat them as one of them!!!

Nice picture of the prairie house

It was beautiful down by the river and the kids always find something to do.  There were loads of little frogs jumping around, Maggie loves all animals

Ben and Maggie love climbing on the driftwood and Ben loves to find a decent log for us to sit on, it's pretty handy!!!  Maggie saw a "big" spider.  I didn't go to see how valid her claim was!!!!

Caroline was sitting on her own, so I had to disturb her and take some pictures.  She looks so sad, I wish I could take her pain away

Sam picked up a bunch of skipping stones

Ben is so flexible, it makes me jealous!!!

Funny picture, Maggie pushing on the deer gate that clearly says Pull!!!!!

Ben waiting patiently at the picnic site for the food to arrive!!!