Oh, and My Little Project !

YAY! I finally got around to it, thanks to our not-so-summery weather!

Here is the $10 Craigslist find 'before'.


And here is the chair 'after'.

Some black, high gloss, spray paint.
Some free foam acquired off of craigslist.
My dream fabric - not free :(

And voila!



I love it, but Richard thinks it looks like Mrs. Roper.

How is Richard Doing?

I'm hoping he'll post on his blog soon. Keep watching Before The War , as I'm hoping with my nagging, he'll update you.

Richard had an appointment with the oncologist just on Tuesday. His Prednisone level got lowered again. The Cyclosporin and Posanol will not get lowered until the Prednisone is completed gone, I think.

So Behind It's Not Even Funny

Dexter colouring away, as usual. Or should I say writing. He actually doesn't really colour a whole lot. He likes to draw people and write words all the time. All the time.

He uses it to try and get out of trouble too.

I'll occasionally catch him out of his bed at night, having snuck over to his colouring nook. When I confront him, he just gives me the sweet sneaky smile and says, "But I was writing M-o-m!"

Like that'll get you out of trouble Buddy.

He also likes to think he can read when it's convenient. For instance, when he likes to drag his shoes to stop his bike instead of using the pedal brakes, he likes to point out the lettering on the bike that apparently says, "Peez use yoy feet foy toppee, not pedabyakes." (please use your feet for stopping, not pedal brakes).



Dexter's Playdates

Rya came for a playdate while AJ was at Jack's, I think. They had a picnic lunch while watching Cinderella. They coloured and drew, lots. They played in the playhouse downstairs. This may have also been the day they were watering my flowers for me.


The Rice Bin

The boys have had LOTS of nice quiet fun playing with rice. We've only recently begun to enjoy a normal summer. Before now, there was a lot of rain and wind and yuck, forcing us to have indoor fun.











Forts

AJ's not only enjoying building the forts, but he 'gets' why you need to use the fort-balls with the lettering facing upwards so that you can build on angles too which means that I do not hear frustrated grunts down the hall.


Dexter is explaining to me how I'm supposed to get down the hall once they're finished.



Pics for Grannie

(backup info for the rest of you - Grannie McNeil, Richard's Mom's Mom, made two quilts for Richard when he was a boy. There's a turquoise one that AJ now has, and this red one, which now belongs to Dexter)

Sorry, Grannie, tilt your head for now.
I will remember, one of these mornings, to take a picture of AJ with his quilt.






Mmmmmm, summer.

I've been wrapped up in enjoying summer. What can I say?

A Little Extra Touch of Normalcy

For those of you who have not heard the good news, Richard has re-entered the workforce and is having his first true day of today!


Not much else to report. What can I tell you? I'm pretty darned happy today. My kitchen makeover is going so well that today I started to cry while preparing the boys' lunch because I was just so darned happy to be in my kitchen and loving it.

The boys have been pretty great. We're dealing with the transition of Dexter to no nap, which means earlier bedtime (yay), but he's waking at 6:30/7am (yuck).

Today has been particularly wonderful despite my waking to being sick. I think I had a panic attack which I have not had in years and I cannot tell you what would've caused it.

But that's not the point of my writing. The boys were wonderful. I explained that I was not feeling well and just wanted to try to sleep on the couch and they played so wonderfully, built their own forts, had movie theatre time in AJ's room, played Transformers, played Rescue Heroes, and played Duplo.

I have a hint of a headache left, but am no longer nauseated. Swimming lessons this afternoon, followed by a well deserved trip to the skatepark or playground will be in order.

I Totally Need to Update with Some Pictures

But until then, I'll leave you with a recent favourite entry of mine from one of my favourite blogs. (Probably only interesting if you're a mom).

Enjoying the Small Things

Protecting your child vs. teaching him/her how to deal with disappointment. I don't like to sugar coat things too much, so I really enjoyed this entry.

It was particularly interesting after watching "Waiting for Superman" and not being surprised at the statistic having to do with US schools having such low achievement, yet scoring highest in 'confidence'...lol.



"...although America is falling behind in math, our kids are first in confidence. American students get terrible math scores compared to their international peers, but they think they’re great in math—in fact, they have more confidence in their math skills than students from any other country."
- quote taken from - http://www.education.com/magazine/article/waiting-superman-means-parents/

A Certain Little Somebody Lost His First Tooth!

It happened yesterday! AJ was VERY excited!

Father's Day and Some Other Things

Friday or Saturday Night Movie-Popcorn-Nights


So, our "movie nights" have recently consisted of watching the series of Harry Potter movies. I've never read the books (not a fantasy girl), nor have I ever seen the movies, so it's been pretty fun curling up on the couch on a Friday or Saturday night with the boys and Daddy and watching the movies. We watched the first one about a month ago.


The next weekend, Dad was here, after watching the boys when we were at Paul's graduation commencement. He stayed overnight and watched the second one with us.


There are some scary parts, so 'curling up' is a must. There haven't been any nightmares, and the boys want to keep watching them, so all seems good so far.
Gram, Papa, Auntie Kim, and Uncle Paul were here the night before Father's Day to watch the third one, but do you think I remembered to bring out the camera? I swear to you, we see Mom and Ken a lot, but you'd never know it from the blog pictures!


The Boys Making Father's Day Cards


The boys each got to make three father's day cards:
1 for Grand-Dan
1 for Papa G.
1 for Papa Z.

They also made one together for Great Grandpa Clark. They had already made special ones for Daddy at preschool.

I made three tickets for each of AJ's cards so that he could put them in the cards. I told him to write things on the back that he thought his grandpas might like to do with him.

Here are the ones for Ken that he wrote.
The first one says, " Go and git KaNdy ". (Go and get candy)
The second one says, "Go To th to ster". (Go to the toy store)
The third one says, "Go To micdonls". (Go to McDonalds)

They were pretty cute.

Here's a picture of Dexter working on his cards.

Here's AJ showing his card for Papa.

Awww. Papa Z and Great Grandpa Clark will need to wait until the postal strike is over. lol.



AJ Drawing Dinosaurs

One of the library books that we took out, was a How to Draw Dinosaurs book. AJ's been busy trying to replicate.

Dexter was trying to draw some too.



Richard

Here he is. He's looking well. Still dealing with the numbness in his hands and feet. The Prednisone level just got dropped again to 7.5 so we'll watch for the GVHD rash and hope that he's fine continuing to cutting it back.

He had his last appointment out here in Abbotsford with his oncologist! If all keeps going as well as it is, he might not have to have any more appointments at VGH!

He talked about how things are going on his blog. Click HERE.


Dexter Has His Very Own Playdate

Dexter got to have Emerson over for a playdate. They coloured their little butts off.
Sorry I'm so lazy and forgetful that I don't turn the picture around.
Don't worry. He's not writing on his bed. He's just lifted up the card he's writing on.



Daddy Finished Building AJ's Computer

I have mixed feelings on this one. Ask me in a month. So far, it's all good.

AJ has definitely shown some interest in what Richard does by trade, programming and software designing. Richard is keen to welcome AJ into his world.

We've been talking about getting AJ a computer in his room and I made space for it a couple months ago. Richard finished piecing together some computer bits that we had here and there to make AJ his own. Here it is.



AJ and Makenna are just getting ready to leave for preschool with Dexter. It was AJ's Show and Tell day, so we printed off these two pics of the new computer and he showed his awesome Christmas gift from Cousin Mike (of which I spoke in the last post).

AJ is just enamoured with these two pictures that I printed off. I'm a bad mommy, and I haven't printed off pictures of the kids for photo albums. There are pictures in frames in the house, but not like this. He's beside himself with the idea that pictures can be printed off whenever we like. Oh, how times have changed.

Anyhow. AJ's had to familiarize himself with a regular mouse (as has Dexter). They are used to this kind of mouse attached to my laptop:

I just LOVE this kind of mouse. You never run into the frustrating problem (especially for children) of running out of space to drag your mouse, then having to pick it up, and put it somewhere else. All you do is use your thumb to move the cursor and then click as normal.

It's been fantastic, and it has enabled Dexter to be able to navigate sites like Boowa and Kwala all by himself for his earned computer time (from doing his chores).

Richard felt it was important for AJ to learn to use a regular-style mouse, especially since that's what they'll have at school, so that's what AJ has. Both boys seem to have caught on pretty fast, so it's been fine.

A little added bonus (or not) is that AJ can watch movies in his room if he'd like.

I wasn't too excited about that, but so far, it hasn't been an issue. He treats it as a special treat and still prefers to play with toys and draw in his room over watching a movie, so it's no big deal.

Here are Makenna and AJ watching Richard Scarry's Busytown Mysteries together, I think. They're 'campin out'.

Some Friday Night

The boys were VERY excited to get to have a movie sleepover in AJ's room one Friday night.
You may or may not notice that Dexter has a black eye. It was quite a week for the right side of Dexter's face that week. First, he slipped on some paper under his loft bed and smashed his cheek on his train table (or so I gather from the story he told me), then he fell at preschool that afternoon which gave him a big red mark on the front of the same cheek, and then, at gymnastics the next day, he collided with another child and got the black eye. Poor little guy.

I brought up the crib mattress from downstairs, got them all cozied up with big blankets and pillows and this is what they chose to watch....


Meet the Colours


lol



Father's Day at Shannon Falls with Grand-Dan


Richard and I drove out to my dad's place with the boys, picked up my dad, and headed for a walk at Shannon Falls.

The boys got to wear their hiking boots, their nature belts, and use their walking sticks (which Richard, my dad, and I ended up using more).





Turn your head to the left.

Now upright again.


Richard had to trek up some stairs. It was impressive. He was pretty worn out.















Some Pictures from Richard's Phone

The first hike with the walking sticks that Richard made for the boys.




*Makenna's Fishing Birthday Party*




*The Bradner May-Days Parade*


AJ was afraid of the possibility of mascots, so he hung back by me.



Dexter is not afraid of mascots.
Dancing around the MayPole

*Captain Kids*

Daddy took the boys to Captain Kids. AJ's at the top of the Lavaslide!

*Grocery Shopping in the Homemade Canucks Shirts*



*Sassy*

Sometimes Sassy sits like this. We think it's cute.

*Richard Owns a Jean Jacket*

I'm still not sure if he was kidding or not, but he tried to leave the house wearing an old jean jacket (that he refuses to let me give away).

Here's the proof:





Just as I finally sit down to post this, I now have a whole bunch more pictures! Yesterday was AJ's preschool graduation (and Dexter's, but really, Dexter is in preschool for two more years, so he didn't really graduate). I'll try to post those soon.