Troy's First Birthday

My little boy turned one last week - has the time ever gone quickly. He has been such a joy. He amazes me everyday with the things he can do. Today he was putting shapes into the shape sorter that Wendy had given to Ethan for his first birthday!!

To celebrate his birthday, we had a party with my family on the weekend and an informal gathering of a few friends (five families and about 12 kids) at our house on his actual birthday. It was a lot of fun and Troy had a great time!! He has long since mastered walking and is getting pretty fast! He likes to point at everything and say "that". He also likes to say "all done" or "done" a lot of the time, especially when he is finished eating. If you don't catch on and get him out of his chair, he starts throwing the food everywhere! Here he is checking out his 2nd birthday cake!

Waiting for the cake to come...

These pictures are from his family party at my dad's house...

He seemed to like the vanilla cake better than the chocolate...Olivia and Caitlyn....

This is an old picture that I put in by mistake....cute nonetheless..

Here is Troy getting ready to go pick up Ethan at the bus stop.

This is another picture of Ethan's first day of school. He seems to be doing well. The only drama has been who sits with who on the bus. A couple of times he friend Aidan has sat on the bus with another boy (an older boy who didn't want to sit by himself recruited Aidan), Ethan had to sit alone and was very sad. It breaks my heart when it happens because he is so sad!!! Hopefully it is just a phase and things will work themselves out.

Ethan's First Day of School

We are getting into our new routine around here now that Ethan has started JK. His bus comes every morning at 8:24, so I have to wake him up each morning around 7:30. Once we are up, things have been going very smoothly.

Here is Troy on Scott's birthday. He is practising eating cake in preparation for his first birthday next week!! He also had some "First Day of School" cake at our neighbours this week and loved it!!

Troy was enjoying playing "rough" with Ethan and Aidan.

Olivia's best pictures seem to be when she is in her high chair - I am not really sure why. Not much is new with Olivia. She started her new class at preschool. Although she is at the same place, she has all new teachers (and classmates) but is adjusting no problem. The teachers comment on how much she enjoys (and participates) in circle time.

Here is Ethan getting ready to go into the school yard on his first day of school. During the week of September 8th, he went for a visit with half the class. When I asked him how things went, he said that Mrs. Bertrand was on her last patience with him - not a good sign. I tried to convince him that he wanted to be her best student! Since the first visit, he has been extremely well behaved and is definitely enjoying it.

Here is Ethan and Aidan getting ready to go the school. Deb and I walk them to the bus stop every morning and then drive over to the school to make sure they got there okay. I am pretty confident that they know the routine now but Ethan told me he still wants to see me before he goes into the school each morning. The only mishap so far was that Aidan was put on the wrong bus on the way home the first day - luckily it was worked out quickly and hasn't happened since!

Here is Ethan and Troy enjoying some time at an indoor playground last Friday night. My friend asked if we wanted to come for an hour or so, so I said sure and volunteered to take all three kids so Scott could stay home and have dinner and relax a bit - my thinking was how hard can it be to have three of them at an indoor playground for an hour. As it turned out, it was very hard!!! Olivia and Troy both seemed to discover their climbing skills - of course at opposite ends of the indoor playground. I was seriously sweating trying to chase after both of them.

The kids all love playing with Ethan's bubble barbeque.

Prior to starting school, we have to get in a number of visits to the driving range and mini-putt to feed Ethan (and now Aidan's) obsession with golf. They are both pretty good and will definitely be taking golf lessons next summer.

Troy has gone from taking 10+ steps to full blown walking. I made the mistake of taking him into a store today without the stroller - all he wanted to do was get down and walk everywhere. In addition to walking, Troy also has a fondness of climbing. He climbs onto the trampoline (seen in the background), stands up and jumps away. Tonight he climbed into Ethan's train table - you definitely can't take your eyes off him for a minute!!!

We are starting to prepare for Troy's first birthday. We have a combined family birthday party (Troy, Scott and my dad) this weekend. On his actual birthday we are going to have a couple of friends over for pizza and cake....I can't believe he is going to be one...stay tuned for pictures of the big day.

The Obsessions of a Four Year Old

Ethan and I went to meet his new JK teacher today. We had a good meeting and she seems very nice. She was quite surprised by all of Ethan's questions, she said most kids are too afraid to talk much. She asked Ethan about the highlights of his summer and he said (i) the golf clubs that Papa bought him and proceeded to tell her about his flourishing golf career; and (ii) the Stars Wars light sabers and action figures that his Nana and mom bought for him. Over the past couple of weeks, Scott has gotten Ethan hooked on Star Wars - he often walks around pretending to Darth Vader and uttering "I am your father". He is also very interested in golf.

Here is my happy 11 month old at Michelle's last weekend.
He loves eating and was anxious to try and steal some of Olivia's food when she wasn't looking.

Here is Ethan with his precious golf clubs that Papa gave him on the weekend! He has been at the driving range at least half a dozen times in the last two weeks. Ethan, Aidan and I went today and had fun. They are both pretty good!

We went swimming last weekend and Olivia had a blast!!

We also went to the Burlington Ribfeast last weekend. Here is Ethan trying rock climbing.Once Ethan got a light sabre and his Halloween costume (Darth Vader), he told Aidan that he had to get his mom to get him one two. Sure enough the next day Aidan had a light saber of his own along with a Batman costume. The two play in their costumes constantly.

Olivia enjoying some food...

Troy will certainly not be able to complain that there were no pictures of him, as is often the case with third children...

Over the past couple of days, Troy has started taking a bunch of steps on his own - he is up to about 5-6 now and also loves walking around pushing anything he can find - the garbage can, a chair, his walker...

Troy continues to want to be wherever Ethan is at. Troy seems to be developing a personality like Ethan - which is okay by me. Ethan gets him going quite easily and they often "talk", yell or laugh quite loudly together first thing in the morning and during mealtimes.

The summer is winding up, Ethan starts JK on the 15th. I have heard from lots of people what a sad day it is but right now I am excited for him. He is going to love it. His class has 18 kids, 11 boys and 7 girls, I feel sorry for his teacher!! I am more sad about the fact that my little guy is going to be one in a couple weeks, I am going to miss the baby stage - although having three independently mobile kids will also be nice!