Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Did I EVER mention that I have the BEST husband in the WORLD???

Well, I DO and he IS!!!

This guy of mine (usually) spends NO time in the kitchen...but not this weekend.

This weekend was my birthday and he baked me a cake.

Not just ANY cake, but my favourite cake:    Chocolate with Boiled Frosting

He even endured quite the injury in the process of his 2nd attempt at the boiled frosting!

The end result was the MOST beautiful cake I EVER had!!!

We went out for Chinese Food the night of my birthday (and was too full for cake when we got home) so we enjoyed some of the cake today after lunch!

The boys sang quite the version of Happy Birthday to me, accompanied by quite the dance and show by Noah (who is quite the performer)!!!

Overall, my day was "another" best birthday spent with my boys!

Camp Out Day

When we enjoyed the premier of Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam and had our 'own' final jam to celebrate the end of summer!!

No words are even needed, just watch the video!




Need I say more???

Science Experiment Day

It didn't happen until after supper because Noah & I rented a movie this afternoon.

It was SO hot this afternoon, we just stayed still and inside.

Mama fell asleep during our movie, I guess I needed some sleep.

So when Jacques got home from work, while supper was finishing we did our super cool experiment.

I let Noah read all the directions and work on the experiment step, by step.

It was so cool...one that we had done before (only with a balloon on the top).

Noah thought it was pretty cool and had fun playing in the 'exploded material' after.

Unfortunately, all these photos Noah had his eyes closed so no photos.

PS...on a side note, really excited today.  Got to see some of the proofs from our family photo session!  They are awesome!  Christa Hann (our photographer) did an awesome job, can't wait to see the rest!!  Go check her out. 

Baseball Day

"MOM, turn around", so I did!  Big mistake.  I fell for it hook, line and sinker!!!  Let's face it!  We ALL have some photos that are not the most 'complimentary' of how we see (or want to see) ourselves!    THIS is one of MINE!!!    

My, oh my!     I need a hair cut, some make up and to shed a few pounds, possibly some wrinkle cream, some lipstick and some tweezers. 

BUT, 'blech' - who is really keeping tabs on these things anyways?  My goal in life is to please my husband and raise a happy-go-lucky child with manners and respect (which happens 'most' of the time)!   

And besides....this week is all about spending time with my boy, and not looking my best! 

In fact, this was taken by Noah with his camera on the way to a local ball game in some really HOT weather!  He's happy!  I'm happy!  And the little bugger caught me completely off guard, no cares in the world here!

Considering Jacques brother and sister in law stopped by for a couple of days, we even got to spend some time with Uncle Mike at the ball game while Brenda visited her mother!

What a bonus!

The Cataracts ended up winning in an amazing game.  A couple of really great plays made for a team that came out on top!  Noah even got to spend some time hanging out with a friend, who happened to be at the game as well.

A fun night was had on our Baseball Day.

And...Jacques made it home safe and sound (around 2:30 am) tonight.  YAY...no more trips for 2 whole weeks this time!

20 - 2 = 18

OK...so, remember in my post yesterday when I said that Noah and I had 20 FREE days with no company, while not on vacation and not at camp?

WELL....make that 18 FREE days now!!!

We got a call last night from Jacques' brother and his wife, who were stopping in for a couple of days (on their way back home from vacation).

WE LOVE IT!!    Surprises like this are the BEST!!!

No complaints here!

This will not put a damper on our fun week of activities planned.

Today is Science Experiment Day and I wore some 'grubby' clothes 'just' in case our science experiment goes bad!!!

Support Group for Home School Families

From what we've heard, read and been told....one of the best ways to ensure your family is successful at home schooling is to be a part of a support system of other families who do the same.  Some place where you can go to bounce ideas, brain storm, have social times for the kids, have 'mama's time away' and even sometimes to vent with other mama's who KNOW exactly what you are going through!

Living in a small community, with fewer services and less people (meaning less families that home school) is sometimes a challenge when it comes to finding support groups like these.  Unfortunately, there is no support group like this in our community,  which left us looking outside of town.

The two we came up with were about 1hr 15minutes away (in Woodstock) and about 45minutes away (in Presques Isle Maine, USA).

In the communication I've had between the Presques Isle, ME coordinator, I am very excited to be joining a group that is SO welcoming!  I have emailed/talked to 3 different women and ALL of them seem very excited and very welcoming to be gaining a new member to their group! 

This group has so many activities going on that we have to pick and choose which activities we will be attending, who woulda'thunk???

From what we've chosen so far, the options we like are:

•  every Friday (for sure) - gym class for 1 1/2 hours. University students will be teaching the children in sessions of every 4 weeks, they will learn about and practice new sports.
• Twice per month (probably) - a science program at the Francis Malcolm Science Center in Easton, Maine
•  every Wednesday (possibly) - swimming lessons (for home school families only), have to call to confirm today
  NOW, I just have to decide HOW much we want to be travelling close to 2 hours per day on the road.   I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it goes with our work load....which will always be the priority!
  
  We are all really looking forward to the new friendships we will make and the new opportunities we will have this year as part of this group!
  
  

Last week b4 school: BLOWOUT

It's hard to believe this is the LAST week before school starts.  Well, I guess we could start 'officially' when we want now that we are a home school family! 

The summer has just disappeared.  We've had a GREAT (no make that FANTASTIC) summer with lots of visitors and TWO family vacations (both very low key, but still loads of fun). Jacques traveled lots (no, too much) for work this summer (all of August, except one week :( ) and Noah spent two weeks at different camps, one week at Science Camp and another week at Soccer Camp....leaving Noah's and I a total of only 20 days free with NO activity, visitors or vacation plans......shheeeesh!

Out of these 20 days, we did school 13 days (trying our hardest to accomplish all we wanted to, so we would only have to do f/t school 4 days a week).  That plan didn't work out, but we're okay with that because our 5th day of school will only be a part day!

So to celebrate the LAST week of summer before school officially starts in our house and we're stopping to have some major fun!

So far, we have done:

DAY 1:    BOARD GAME DAY

The game of choice was Star Wars Monopoly! 

And I MAJORLY lost!  Can you tell that Noah is over the top excited?

DAY 2:  BAKING & WEED pulling DAY

Before it got too warm out today, we both went out and got tonnes of cucumbers from our garden then began weeding.  It's surprising how well mulch helps with the weeds (considering I hadn't weeded in over 3 weeks)!!

We came in the house, had our showers and then made some banana bread.   I think and Noah agrees that it was the BEST banana bread we EVER made!!!  We made a small loaf for us and a regular size loaf for our pastors family (who are in the process moving).

Our plan for the rest of the week is this:

DAY 3:  COOKING AND BALL GAME DAY

Today, we are making some supper for our pastor's family (and for us at the same time).  We chose a recipe off the internet, went yesterday to get the ingredients and are cooking today.

Tonight, we are going to watch the local baseball team.  It's playoff season and we can't miss out on the peanuts at the ball park!!!

DAY 4:  SCIENCE EXPERIMENT DAY

YUP, we pulled out the science experiment book and chose a few experiments to do!  Should be fun!

DAY 5:  CAMP DAY

So today we're getting ready for 'our' final jam, the end of summer bash.    One of our favourite family movies

Camp Rock 2, one of our favourite family movies premiers this night (if you recall, we LOVE Disney musicals in our family) and we're having a Camp Rock party....doing everything that you'd do at camp!!! 

This day is our preparation day.  We're going to get all our supplies to make roasted hot dogs, marshmallows, s'mores and maybe even some Jiffy Pop on the campfire!!!

Noah's friend is coming to have a 'camp rock' kinda day....they are having a 'camp out' in the back yard and we're going to have a campfire - all before Camp Rock starts at 9pm.  We plan to let the boys stay up TOO late to watch the movie!!! 

Fingers crossed that Hurricane Earl holds off for us for our Friday plan!  If not, we'll make the best of it and have a camp out inside!!!

NOTHING is going to ruin our fun....N O T H I N G!!!

Sounds like a fun way to celebrate the last week, huh?

So that will be 'our' final jam!