Young Love is A Purple Unicorn

Yesterday I witnessed an innocent moment of  young love.  My boys were invited to a girl's birthday party from their old daycare.  My youngest has always had a thing for her.  He counts her as one of his many girl friends, perhaps his first.

Having no idea what to buy her, we went to Toys R Us and I told the boys they could pick out one gift each.  I already envisioned the mom using the oh so handy gift receipt to return the boyish presents mine were likely to buy.

S decided that he was going to buy a stuffed pony and L a Barbie.  And sure enough, S zeroed in on a purple unicorn and L settled on Merida from Brave. 

The party was fun, a few old friends from daycare were there.  Sean was so excited to give A her gift, and was disappointed that she wasn't going to open the presents there at the party due to time constraints.  He was so disappointed that  A's mother bent the rules and let A open our gift in secret.  As soon as she saw the purple unicorn, she hugged it and exclaimed that she had been wanting a purple unicorn forever.  Sean beamed.  It was a sweet moment that I hope they both remember when they're old and grey. 

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y

It is the last Saturday night of the Christmas break!  Yeah!  By now, I need a week to myself to decompress and relax.  While the husband was able to go back to work on January 2nd, I had to take three vacation days to stay home with the boys. 

I love my children but I am ready to have them go back to school and back on a routine that doesn't include hours and hours of Skylanders Giant, intermixed with Batman on the X-Box. 

So yes, I am looking forward to go back to work on Monday, and going through the throngs of e-mails that are likely waiting for me.   At least I'm bringing in my gift from Santa, a personal size Keurig machine.  Cheers to many cups of caffeine! 

Bowling the Old and Sledding the New

Happy New Year!

We celebrated the new year at exactly 7 pm on December 31, 2012, thanks to the local bowling alley's New Year's eve party, complete with a countdown with noise makers and hats. 

We had a fun time bowling with the big balls.  We usually go 10 pin bowling.  And by fluke, we ended up bowling beside a little boy from school, B, who is in the other grade one class. Suddenly, L was happy to go bowling.  On our drive over, L had been protesting and complaining about not wanting to go bowling. 

We were home by 7:30pm and the boys were in bed by 8.  And yours truly wasn't far behind them.  I went upstairs to read in bed and was fast asleep by 9:30, according to my Twitter feed.  I must be old, I can't even make it to 10pm, let along midnight.

January 1st brought us a sunny day.  There is still snow on the ground so we decided to try out some toboggans we  bought one hopeful winter a few years ago.  Believe it or not, the boys, ages 6 and 4, have never been tobogganing -- well, Liam has, as a baby.  We tied Pepper to his infant sled and she pulled him a distance about a foot. 

 There is a small little hill at the neighbourhood park, which is just big enough to introduce the boys to tobogganing. 

Of course the boys protested as we made them put their snowpants, and warm mitts on, grumbling how they didn't want to go.  However, once out there on the wee hill, they loved it. 

S claims he wants to go sledding every day. 

I guess we may have to invest in some better sleds and maybe find some bigger hills.  And hopefully we'll get a bit more snow.  The grass was already poking out in some spots.