Tim McGraw....

For Sid......

I just want to say thank you to Christies guy Sid, who wasn't able to make it to the concert last night because he was busy working away for his family. I know he would have LOVED to have been at that concert with Christie, D and A. I'm so sorry you couldn't be there Sid.

Thank you sooooo much for allowing me to go in your place though - and Christie thank you sooooo much for asking me - AND driving me - AND taking such care of me on the LRT and everything (yes everyone it was my very first experience on the LRT hahahaha)!!! I had a blast last night.....

Anyway, Sid, I hope you like the t-shirt I got for you as a thank you!! And this song is for you - Christie says it is one of your favourites!!

PS. I hope you know you are the best thing to happen to Christie in a very long time :)

Headliner.....

Scrummy ;)

So tired....haven't been through all my pictures yet but took a quick look and figured I'd post this one for now....lot's more to come....will post about the concert later but for now I'll just leave you with a picture of the headliner...............the very delicious Mr Tim McGraw ;)

My little Sunflower :)

Samuel - always so full of sunshine :)

Cooking with Daddy...

Last week Sam and Abby made some quick and easy chocolate croissants for when the older kids got home from school. Soooo simple - chocolate chips rolled up in Pilsbury crescents :)

Somehow Laurence is ALWAYS around when there is baking to try ;) (check out our homeschooling blog for more baking tales)

???????? rotflmao!!!

So I go to sort through the pictures on my camera and I find THIS!!!!!! Hhhmmmmm....... ;)

The bake fest continues....

I think Abigail REALLY enjoyed her day of baking, and we have a pantry full of delicious treats - her brothers and Sister were all thrilled to come home and find so much to choose from!!! Yum!!!

Skills learned? Science, math, reading, home economics, health and hygiene, nutrition......lol but most important we had FUN - the two of us together :)

Baking fest!!

Every week while Sam is at PreK and the older three are at school, Abigail and I have our 'girl's day'. Abigail is free to choose whatever she likes for us to do with our day!! This week, Abigail chose to come home and spend the day BAKING!!!!! We dropped Sam at Pre-K for 9am, then came home and cleaned up the kitchen before getting started!!

Abigail started with a simple Jello cheesecake mix from a packet which Lloyd had picked up last night - he LOVES them and had put ina request for Abigail to make him one!!! She rustled that up VERY fast!!

Cookies were next - 'wholewheat and oat cookies with chocolate and butterscotch chips' to be exact!! She followed the recipe - getting all of the ingredients out and measuring everything.....using my kitchen aid mixer (which she always loves to use). The cookies came out perfectly!!! Totally yummy!

After that Abigail peeled all the potatoes I needed to go with my pot roast for supper!

Then after lunch she set to work on making cupcakes - marble chocolate chip cupcakes - half of which she then iced in BRIGHT BLUE icing!!! Lovely ;) Sam was definitely impressed :) 4 year olds LIKE bright blue icing :)

Cityscape...

I snapped this through the car window last night driving back from town....Lloyd commented on how the city looked so nice with the sun so low. WE were both saying how sad it is that it gets dark so early already. The weather is so incredible right now and waaaay above average!!! They said tonight that by the end of next week we could be waaaay BELOW average temperature-wise, so I guess Fall will arrive with a BANG!!!!

I hope they are wrong!

Pot roast....

I'm still loving my crockpot!! Yesterday I made chicken madras in it......soooo good! We had that with Basmati rice and I cooked up some pappadums just before Lloyd arrived home :) Yummy :)

Last night I prepped this - a beef pot roast. It was cooking ALL day today and by the time it was served - with crispy roast potatoes and brussel sprouts - it was soooooo tender, that it was just falling apart!!! Delicious!!!

Next to come - sweet and sour chicken with yummy pineapple and baby carrots!!

Sam's first day....

Sam started PreK today. He was very excited to go again - this is a new class at a new place for him and he was thrilled to be going! He has been counting down the 'sleeps'!! He had his new indoor shoes and backpack and lunchkit....and he was all set :) We got there nice and early as I wasn't quite sure how long it would take us to get there, but we weren't the first one's there anyway - a few people were starting to arrive - and being early gave us a chance to say hello to the teachers in the quiet and look around the place without too many people around!!

I wasn't sure how Sam would be as he had been soooo upset in June about not going back to his old friends and teachers - but he has grown up so much over the Summer, and he just went on in really excited - he wasn't bothered about us leaving at all - a quick kiss and he was off to play!

He is gone for a full 'school day' - and if you want to see what Abigail and I get up to while Sam is busy at school, then check out the homeschool blog later ;)

In our thoughts...

A family friend of ours (and colleague of Lloyds) has had a brain aneurysm which led to brain surgery. She is now in a coma at the U of A hospital.

She is a single Mom of a large, active family and we all need her to recover quickly and be home with her children as soon as possible.

Lori, you are in our thoughts.

XXXX

Playing horseshoes...

After lunch we played horse shoes....

Early morning Lady Bug catching...

The weather has been very hot the last few days - around 28c.....so we have been out and about eraly this morning before it got too hot to play in the sun!! Sam and Abigail Enjoyed the sand box, trampoline and climbing frame BEFORE settling down to their studies!!! It worked out quite well actually because it gave me a chance to get dinner in the crockpot, tidy up and get other chores done and have everything organized and tidied up and they had a little less bouncy energy ready for when it was time to sit down and get started!!

they came inside thrilled to have found a lady bug and soon found a jar to put it in. They studied it for a while before letting it go on it's way.

A few weeks ago we found another fascinating bug - a Burying beetle!! To find out more about this AMAZING beetle, you can read about it on our family blog here: escapingthecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/burying-beetles.html

Scrabble Junior...

Board game fun....after they had done some of their workbooks. they had both used mini pompoms as counters today - and then the kitten came along and had great fun kicking the pompoms all over the kitchen floor and chasing them everywhere :)

Abigail is learning that subtraction and addition are very closely linked and that she can use addition to check that her subtraction sums are correct!!

Sam starts his all day Pre-K class tomorrow - he will go one day a week and that will give me a full day with Abby to do whatever she would like! She has chosen to bake all day tomorrow! So this week that is what we will do!!! Other weeks we can go swimming or to museums, skating...the muttart, downtown to meet up with friends - anywhere she chooses!! Funny girl actually chose to stay home this week - and bake!! :) I think one week we will go to one of those places where you go and prepare meals - or one of those kids kitchen places!!!