our little walkers

While preparing dinner last night, Cody and the kids started a backyard fire. After dinner, when night had fallen we went back out to enjoy it. Somehow our cozy little family fire became a zombie love fest. Cody repeatedly hid in our back woods and then put his Walking Dead training to use walking back making some pretty convincing zombie noises. The poor dog's heart nearly blew up.

Cody was an awesome zombie but it was priceless when Elliott and Kate took their turns as the Walkers or Biters (depending on which camp you originate).

It was one of those precious impromptu evenings that was happily topped off with a few early Halloween treats. Trick or treat!

CAKE

our fridge runneth over

The curse of the prolific four year old artist is that weekly, we quickly run out of display areas. It's Thursday afternoon and our fridge is officially full; so too is the recycling bin! I'm constantly astonished at the love Kate has for her projects and am pleased that she's developing skills and exploring new subjects almost constantly.

Here's a peak at a few recent projects...

Our colourful fridge. A couple of these are even Elliott's.

 This one is fairly self explanatory. Personal plug - I did the stellar spelling and cutting.

Like her Mama and her brother, Kate loves the mushrooms, that in this weather, are cropping up almost daily. A loving tribute to mushrooms of all shapes and sizes.

- At first glance the project on the left appears a little religious. In fact it is the letter "t". I just plain dig it.
- If you can't tell the middle piece is of a cupcake. Like the heart and the flower, Kate seems to constantly return to her girly favourites.
- The square on the right was one of a post-it note series that were almost all identical. I should have grabbed a shot as they worked well together.

A new favourite theme - Halloween. She's working hard on Jack O' Lanterns, bats and haunted houses. Stay tuned.

In other news, tonight I'm attending the kick off to Kindergarten 2014. I have no idea what it will entail but I'm excited. Next Thursday is of course Halloween. I promise a blog on school activities and Trick or Treating. Saturday Cody is competing in another CrossFit event and then we'll be attending the Wine Festival. I'm going to enjoy my good health leading up to that one.

If I don't talk to you before next week, have good, safe, relatively healthful Halloweens!
xoxo Aimee and the goblins

gracias

We celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend in PEI so this weekend have made the most of the gorgeous fall weather. We've had a couple of fires in the backyard and today got out to Dobson Trail for our family's version of a hike. I was just remarking to Cody that we needed to start tackling greater distances when Kate started complaining about the length of the walk and Elliott began asking why someone wouldn't pick him up. Being that this is Thanksgiving Day, I'm just going to say this, I'm at least thankful that they have graduated from the backpacks! They were a heavy load - in more ways than one.

This week we are thankful too that Elliott only had a dislocated elbow when he had to be taken to emergency Wednesday night. Poor Cody had to do the heavy lifting sitting in emergency from 7:15pm then home at 4:15am in time to make it to the airport for 6:00am.

The kids have been enjoying school especially with the recent bake sale and regular field trips. They have both been to an apple orchard, Elliott's class also went to a pet store where the highlight for Elliott was seeing a mouse running on a wheel and this week Kate's class participated in a nature walk. Lovely!

Here's some smiles and one big frown from our afternoon walk.

Spot the frown? As well as Elliott's attempt at thumbs up!

There is very little else to report. We're in a pretty routine one month into the school year. With that said, I sense some havoc coming as the first school colds are creeping into the kids and me.

Here's turkey hangovers all around. Gobble gobble.
AJ

see ya later training wheels

We're on day three of coaching Kate on a two wheeler and spirits are high. This week I noticed that her training wheels were misshapen and worn out to the point that she was falling all the time. So, I talked Papa into taking her out Wednesday night for some two-wheeler trials. There was no hesitation from her and she seemed to be a quick study. Thursday night the same after dinner practice then yesterday I had the kids out in the afternoon and Kate had it down. She was riding from one end of our street to the other and even up onto the driveway. She was going so fast that neither Elliott (on his motorcycle) nor I  (on foot) could keep up so she continued on down the two blocks solo. Thrilling! The best part seeing her jump around uncontrollably and beaming ear to ear from that two-wheeler high.

Here's a glimpse of her first night of practice...

Next challenge is to get her practicing starting off on her own. She's still trying to defy physics by putting both feet on the pedals at a complete stand still. Cody and I have a funny feeling that the need for greater child supervision is coming very quickly - we both remember very clearly the sense of and true freedom that a bike provides.

Here's one more shot I wanted to share form this week. Another beautiful Autumn day with my teammates.

Congratulations Kate, we're thrilled for you.

Love,
Mama, Papa and Elliott (although I think he preferred being the speedier one in the family)