January

January absolutely flew by. I think for me part of it was that I don't work the first few days of the month and the other part is that it is end of semester. This change in my day-to-day work routine made the month absolutely fly by!

At the start of the month, I did a bit of cleaning in our pantry. We have a banker's box half full of Halloween candy sitting at the bottom. Yes. You read that right. I am really bad at throwing stuff out - particularly if it is something I might need or buy in the future. Treats come in hand on occasion, so I struggle to throw this crap out. And it is crap. Needless to say in my cleaning frenzy I realized that I needed to purge some of it. Subsequently, we had taco in a bag for supper. It was divine. Hugh and I just ate taco salad, but there were three little Halloween bags for the kidlets. Unfortunately, those were the only 3 items I got rid of in the Halloween box. I am a work in progress.

Boone is so outgoing. Hugh and I often wondered if he would be the exact opposite of Calder in school. We actually spent time envisioning parent teacher interviews where we spent more time discussing ways to help Boone get focused in than on how he was developing socially and academically. We had a taste of his listening skills this fall in gymnastics, but in January we got an even closer look at Boone the student. . .

I was feeling Calder needed some trampoline safety and decided to put him in a tumbling and trampoline class at Can Am Gymnastics. We thought this would be a good opportunity to give Boone a chance at his own thing. He was psyched to say the least. We ended up putting him in a 4 year old class because we thought it would be the best fit for him (he doesn't turn 4 until the middle of March) and it lined up best with Calder's class. Boone is killing it. The teacher says "line up" and he lines up. She says "stop", he stops. It is amazing. He did struggle at first to figure out how a circuit works. The first day he spent a lot of time on one or two stations or just doing his own thing on the side. We practiced a circuit at home that week and drove the point home that he couldn't just do the things he wants to do and he hasn't looked back since. Boone also attended a Robert Munsch night at Hugh's school. At one point a teacher was reading a story and a couple of kindergarten kids were talking. He took no pause and told them to be quiet and listen. He also saw some kids getting  into trouble for running at Princess Alex's Winter Carnival. The teacher left and the kids continued running. Boone began insisting we get up from our table and give the kids crap for running. So, as it turns out we might not be dealing with an unfocused kid during Boone's parent teacher interviews. . . Maybe a teacher's pet or tattle-tale, though!

Here is an item I can't live without. . . . Our "rink" bucket. I used one last spring during Calder's hockey season. A mom actually told me, "You are mom of the year" when she saw it. Obviously, I am including that tidbit!  I got this one up and going again in the fall and then when Hugh and I did a big toy clean at Christmas anything we had that was small went in the bucket. Lawson puts the bucket in her backpack and wears it around the rink. Here Lawson is playing with it at gymnastics. It is great anywhere, although it is primarily used at the rink. At gymnastics we just need to be sure to grab the cow bells out so no one loses an eardrum.

Two weeks ago, I went to add some little toys I had randomly found to the bucket and couldn't find it or Lawson's backpack. Hugh and I scoured our house and as much as I wanted to blame Hugh, I realized that the last time I saw it was when I had Boone and Lawson at gymnastics. It is a madhouse when class ends to get out the door, so I was pretty sure I must have set it down and not picked it up. I lost sleep over this silly backpack. I stressed about finding replacement toys and about how much it would cost me (I was thinking about $80). I called Can Am about it, but they never returned my call. In order to try relieve me of my missed z's, Hugh headed into Can Am to check the lost and found for me. He came up empty handed. I was appalled that someone would steal it, not wanting to take my own responsibility for it. As we got out of the van the following Sunday for class, I asked Hugh what the odds were of someone returning the stolen backpack. To which he responded, "It could happen."  The moment I stepped into the facility I glanced at the wall of coats hung up and started searching for someone to have returned it. Low and behold, Lawson's owl backpack caught my eye. I pulled it off the wall and asked Calder what the odds were that this was ours. He figured it was and low and behold our backpack was recovered. I have no doubt wasn't stolen and that it was more likely that Hugh just did a man scan when he went to look for it!  I was on cloud 9. Love me that bucket. And also love me saving cash!

We had some incredible weather in January. We broke a record high one day, but had at least a handful of days above zero. In fact, last night Hugh did some serious repair on our rink from some damage the warm weather has done to our arena. My spirit has been loving the warm temperatures and sunshine. This is also another reason January may have blown by.

First the obvious. THAT. BEARD. It is getting so long. And no, it isn't a playoff beard. It started as an "I'm to lazy to shave" beard after Christmas and has grown into something he brushes in the morning (not kidding).

Secondly, the point of this picture. We headed to Shellbrook for Hockey Day in Saskatchewan a couple weeks ago. It was an amazing event and so great to see some of my ball girls and Hugh's hockey buddies and their wives. If Hugh and I could pick a small town to live in Shellbrook would be at the top of the list. There are so many great people there and such a sense of community. We love it.

Another place to document Boone falling asleep. This was more of a transition place. He was sleeping in the van, woke up, got out and crawled to our raised "lockers" and promptly crashed back into oblivion.

I have been trying to re-introduce the kids to toys they don't play with by bringing things out before supper when I need a few minutes to get ready. Sometimes it works like a charm to occupy them and other times they just make a mess and I ended up spending more time getting them to clean it up than they did actually playing with it!

Once again, what a great month!