OK, so we have been extremely delinquent with the blogging.
It becomes very overwhelming when you miss a few events, and things snowball and the summary blog post in your head starts getting bigger and bigger and more and more stressful to think about!
Here is a brief summary of the things we COULD have written witty and interesting posts about this summer:
- our purchase of a Wii for "father's day".
- Dana's moment of shame when she edged out a mother of four to get a Wii Fit at Best Buy
- Hulahooping over the summer, and learning new tricks from Alyssa (who knew she was a rhythmic gymnast!?!??!!?)
- Flossy ultimate fun
- Dr. Teeth and why Dana and John won't play on the same team until the kids can babysit themselves on the sideline....
- Our trip to New Brunswick and associated case of food poisoning.
- Our week by ourselves at home while Mom and Dad watched the boys in Belleville (FYI, the boys did NOT miss mommy!!)
- how I tricked John into painting the bathroom while the boys were in Belleville.
- John's summer long quest to build a horseshoe pit in the backyard. (yes, he finally got it done, no, he has not played a single game with anyone yet)
- the birth of the adorable Grace Elizabeth Haggerty to Kevin, Amy and Liam (and how I had just told John a few weeks earlier that I wanted to name our next daughter (if we ever have one!) Grace - but having a Grace Haggerty is perfectly perfect to me!)
- the birth of Emmett McGinnity, to Sarah, Noel and Owen and my sincere wishes for the miracle blanket to work it's charm on him for the sake of his mother's sanity.
- learning to make fondant cakes with my talented sister-in-law. (that tastes as delicious as it looks...mmmmmarshmallow!)
- how Trevor almost broke my record for hulahooping on Wii, and how I haven't been doing any training to prevent this from happening the next time the Mason's come over!
- our purchase of our Toyota Sienna mini van and associated drama with car dealers, trying to decide where to buy (US vs Canada) etc etc etc. (the truck recall post is of course john's to write)
- how much i LOVE our minivan, even though i wasn't sure if I was going to be able to reconcile myself to being a minivan mom.......apparently i can!
- how the boys have grown and learned all kinds of new things this summer, good and bad!
- how Daniel has the most mischievous smile and has earned the nickname "Silent Sam" cause he doesn't talk much, especially when new people are around. Every new word he says is like a present because they have seemed so few and far between.....his latest are "brother" and "catch" and "tani" (his babysitter)
- how David continues to amaze us with his oh-so-accurate recollection of everything that he hears..... including spelling "p-i-s-s-i-n-g me off" to his stuffed animals. (fyi. all spelling of inappropriate words has been officially suspended in the Kean household)
- how David starts nursery school tomorrow and it makes me happy because i know he will love it and thrive and soak everything up like the little sponge he is, and how i am sad because he is getting so big and he goes to the potty by himself and gets dressed (mostly) by himself and he is getting SO independent!!!
- our anniversary dinner last thursday and how awesome it was to go out just the two of us and enjoy a bottle of wine and some delicious steaks
- Heather and Julien's wedding and how the bridesmaids looked fabulous in orange, and Heather's craftiness and organization were quite a sight to see.
-hmmmm I think that brings us up to the present..... hopefuly I can start a fresh tomorrow - maybe some with some pics of David's first day of nursery school and a "david kean" review of how the day at school went:)
...dana
aka. princess disenchanted:)
Submitted by danakean on Tue, 09/09/2008 - 19:01.
A post for Kevin, so he can be jealous of all the fun that was had. Not really.... we missed you and Amy!!! Steve and I had a moment where we looked at each other and said "I wish Kev was here!" at least, I think we had that moment, i'm not exactly sure cause as Jody's pictures show, the Galbraiths and the Keans.... or at least one of the Keans were at the top of the drunkest people at the wedding club:) Fabulous. SOOOO Much fun:)
PS. don't you dare correct my FUNNEST;)
Submitted by danakean on Sun, 06/22/2008 - 22:01.
Our little monkey turned one today. And he really just couldn't get any cuter!!! (see flickr for more pics - we left them public for everyone to enjoy for now, but we encourage people to get a flickr account so we can add you as friends and keep them private!!) We had a very busy weekend with all kinds of visitors - Gram and Grampy arrived on Thursday, Nanny and Julie arrived Friday, Rachel, Ryan, Auntie Trish, Sarah, Emily, Auntie Cathie, Catelin, Chelsie, and Cody arrived Saturday. My (long lost:) cousin Nicole is visiting from Vancouver Island and everyone wanted to see her so we decided a BBQ was a fabulous way to get together. I say "long lost" because Nicole hasn't visited Ontario in years and we always have good times whenever we get together:) In any event, David and Daniel were completely loving the attention all weekend long and Daniel really appreciated all the great gifts. Funny how the noisy ones came from certain Auntie's - John has asked me "who bought him THIS?" in reference to the tambourine and very noisy rooster toy and was very unsuprised about my response. Thanks to everyone for coming and for bringing delicious potluck items. We really enjoyed having you!!!!
Submitted by danakean on Sun, 05/11/2008 - 19:38.
Wine makes me very happy. I recently went on a wonderful weekend trip to the Niagara region to celebrate a very special bachorette for my friend Alix. We had a fabulous weekend of wine drinking and shopping and hanging out with the girls:) Of course this was all possible thanks to my wonderful husband who looked after the boys for three whole days. I definetely owe him a weekend or two of disc golf for this. While there, I visited some old favourites: namely Featherstone and Caroline Cellars as well as some new ones, especially Strewn and Ridgepoint Winery where we enjoyed a fabulous lunch and an especially delicious white wine called "Ragazzi". I actually think it was my favourite wine of the whole weekend. This past weekend, I enjoyed drinking some of my purchases with John (and Kevin!) along with some homemade cheese and pepper jam that I picked up at Featherstone. Delicious!!! My favourite non-alcohol purchase of the weekend was a pair of gorgeous pink Nine West pumps..... David also was a fan of them as you can see below:
Submitted by danakean on Mon, 04/28/2008 - 17:39.
It's hard to beleive that Daniel is almost one and planning is underway for his first birthday party.... - well, to tell the truth, I have been thinking about his party for quite some time, ever since I saw that martha stewart episode about throwing a monkey themed birthday party. I assume watching that episode while I was pregnant had no influence on his current love of climbing on top of any and everything, throwing food on the floor and eating 'na' s (bananas). He really does merit a monkey first birthday party:) It is pretty easy to figure what Daniel loves best of all if you look at the "words" he has figured out so far. Or I probably should say, WE have figured out so far.... "Ba" is ball. His first and favourite word. This kid LOVES balls. "Duh" is Dollars, and "Di" is Sid. Second only to balls, is his love for the cats. He adores them, his face lights up whenever he sees them. They of course take any eye contact from Daniel as a cue to hightail it out of the room:) But sometimes they let him play with them a bit, particularly if he sneaks up on them when they are sleepy and mellow. - he is pretty gentle MOST of the time. Hmmm, he does "ba ba" for bottle pretty regularly in context. Sometimes, I think he says "ma ma" for milk. -and only occasionally do we get "mama" and "dada" in what might be context for us. Apparently we just aren't as high on his list of priorities;) More commonly I hear a "da" that I think is his version of "david". I feel like baby translator here:) , but that is what I love, to watch as they both figure out new things. Today, David and I played Hi Ho Cherry O and I thought to myself "wow, I am playing a board game with my baby!!!, craziness"
Submitted by danakean on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 18:24.
We headed out to the maple syrup farm after swimming lessons this morning and enjoyed pancakes, sausages and beans for lunch and maple taffy on snow of course! The boys (and I include Liam in "the boys") all thoroughly enjoyed scarfing down pancakes and syrup and especially the wagon ride. Liam kept pointing to the horses and saying "horse" - it was very cute. John took some questionable photos of our outing that somehow seem to be missing heads in a lot of shots. I think he is losing his touch!!!
I think the boys really enjoyed their last week at home with Daddy. Well, on Tuesday and Wednesday they went to "Tani's" house allowing Daddy to complete some important chores like installing the kickplate for our central vac in our kitchen and getting the clutch replaced in my car! Thursday they headed to Aunt Carolyn's for a walk in the snow with Bridget and Friday they headed to David's very favourite museum - The Museum of Nature. Much better than last weekend's visit to the Museum of Civilization although he did enjoy that as well! Hmmm, I think I neglected to post about our Easter activities - I will have to remedy that, perhaps not tonight though!. Daddy heads back to work on Monday and I think we are all looking forward to settling in to a new routine. So far 2008 has been go, go, go all the time. Knowing David and Daniel, I doubt that things will slow down anytime soon though:)
Submitted by danakean on Sat, 03/29/2008 - 20:57.
I need to apologized for this long winded post.
Well where do I begin! We booked a flight to Saint John for Cathy and Bob's wedding using aeroplan points that when I first signed up for it was free to cash them in. Now the points expire within a year and you have to pay tax on the flight, which I don't understand since it is free, I guess everyone wants their money. The flight down was quite good I was impressed, however at the Ottawa airport I lost my coffee since I could not bring it through security since it was liquid, oh well. David really enjoyed the flight and looking at all the airplanes and telling us what color they were. He was also asking which color plane we would get on. When we landed in Saint John we waited until everyone had gotten off the plane so we would not bother anyone. So that flight was good, now upon returning from SJ we have not had much luck! We are put on a plane that only had 1 side of the airplane that could have an infant. This was the side of the plane that they put Dana and Daniel and David in one row and me in another one on the side of the plane that did not allow infants. The reason for this was the oxygen masks. I was OK with this but what comes next I was not OK with. The stewardess was mean when addressing both Dana and I. Daniel started to get fussy since it was time for supper, this was OK so Dana sent me up top to get the baby food, it had exploded since the lids of baby food don't really close properly. Well there was strawberry banana everywhere, I asked the stewardess for something to clean it up with, well apparently that really put her out since she gave me dirty look as if to say, "don't bother me". I was only trying to clean up so she would not have to. Anyway while cleaning up the strawberry banana that was all over the plane I needed to throw out the napkins I was using, apparently this pissed her off to since I got in her way again, next time I will leave it and if there are napkins covered with crap I will leave them for her to clean up.
Submitted by johnkean on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 09:30.
This is the best shot of Daniel taken lately. Apparently he enjoys pushing around the toy he is standing on so that he can climb on top of things that he couldn't otherwise reach. For example the train table:) He is such a monkey - I just don't remember David being such a daredevil! We took him for his 10 month pictures today but she didn't manage to get any pics that were quite as mischievous as this:)
David has been dealing with his weaning from the soother really well. - he really is getting to be a big boy. Of course he quickly suggested that we drive to Nanny's in the white car to GET the soother. He doesn't miss much this kid. At the moment he is quite into Finding Nemo. He sat at the dinner table and told me the names of every character in the movie. John helps him out with the obscure ones by looking them up on the net. Thus we know the three sharks are Bruce, Chum and Anchor.
Swimming lessons started tonight, we are trying david out with a weeknight class so we will see how that goes. Daniel starts next Saturday. That's all for now. We are looking forward to Easter but wishing Gram and Grampy were here. They really shouldn't be missing the first day of spring - oh right, they are in paradise, silly me!
Submitted by danakean on Wed, 03/19/2008 - 21:54.
Well, where do I start? I was headed to ball hockey tonight, I haven't really driven my truck for about 3 months. As I am driving down Cambrian road, which appears to be live a washboard or corduroy. It felt like I was in the tragically hip song. Anyway as I stopped at the stop sign everything seemed normal. Well, when I started to move again, everything was not normal. Apparently my oxygen sensor blew out of the exhaust pipe. Now the truck is loud. Not just 2 weeks ago, I said that I have not put any money into this truck, and now here it is. I am gonna have to sink $500 or more into this thing. At 11:30pm I called Tony Graham Toyota, and they were able to fit me in at midnight to get the truck looked at. I thought hummm... this is pretty good. I am glad they work until 2:00am. So after discussing with Dana what would be the most convenient, we decided I would head over there now. So here I am sitting at Tony Graham blogging about this experience since I have nothing better to do. When I arrived they were expecting me which I was surprised, so I thought humm... I should get good service. They had my truck in the shop ready to work on it before the guy at the counter could print out the work order. This mechanic was a Keener, this is good. The guy I was talking to on the phone came over and asked me if I wanted anything from Tims. I thought to myself, its midnight and I am going to be here until 2am, I should get a coffee. So I took out my money to pay and he said not to worry about it. I was quite impressed with his generosity! Within 5 minutes of me typing this blog the service man came over and confirmed that the oxygen sensor had blown off and they think they should be able to put it back on with $30 worth of parts. Again I was surprised, however I would have to pay for about an hour of labour, this sucks since I will likely be here for the next hour, but it is better than waiting until 2am. This is what they are going to try, as it appears that the pipe where the sensor attaches is still good and the sensor is also good. Tell me this service center being opened until 2am is not a brilliant idea. Well, my coffee just arrived! As promised, it was free, Fantastic! Now I am in a holding pattern, to see if that worked and if I will get my truck back. Now it is ready, and it had its oil changed.
It is now 12:52, and its all done, I arrived at 12:00. Pretty good I must say and a lot cheaper than I thought I would spend.
Submitted by johnkean on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 07:38.
Well, we have been expecting Daniel to start walking for a while now. He was an early crawler and stander and has been very steady on his feet for a couple of months now. Of course, he took his first real step while I was at work yesterday. (sigh)
When I got home, I put him in front of me and he took two steps towards me before hitting the ground. (come on, mom.... crawling is much faster than this walking business!) I was a little sad to see my baby reaching this milestone. He is growing up so fast. Too fast I think sometimes. Ah well.... I doubt he will look back now that he has figured out walking, he will be running in no time, I'm sure:)
Submitted by danakean on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 21:17.
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