A whole year

Without meaning too, a year has passed without writing a new post. Will posts a lot on Facebook these days, so his pictures are shared quickly. Still, I'd like to keep posting here every once in a while. This post will be a compilation of the highlights of the past year.

Right now, I'm sitting next to Ben on the couch while he plays Angry Birds (headphones on- thank goodness for technology). Will and Clara are upstairs napping. Outside, there's a blizzard. Over 40cm of snow and gale force winds. We had a brief game of snow soccer (below). On a somewhat similar day last winter, Will and Clara made it onto the local news.

A highlight of family life this past year has been seeing how nicely Ben and Clara play together. Clara's outfit in this video captures her "Maisie Mayem" side well. Ben is patient with her, and with all the "babies" thrust into his life.

In the summer, we spend a fair bit of time at the Waeg. Ben went there for day camp- he had swimming lessons most morning and ran around outside in the afternoons. Here's a video he made one weekend during Nana Maggie's visit- I love the ending.

We had great times with visitors this spring and summer: Maggie, Alison, Stephanie and Monica. So nice to share a slice of our hectic lives with them. Also sad to be so far away most of the time. I also travelled to Ontario in August to go to my friend Eleanor's wedding and stay with Emily. A really, really nice trip.

 

This spring, Will made a planter for our ever-failing Kale. He has also gotten more and more skilled at sewing, and made a lightweight hammock that is incredibly comfortable. We had a nice weekend testing it our at Keji with friends.

Our summer plans were shaken up a bit by Ben breaking his arm at daycare (falling off a pile of crates, or hay,  in the playground). His teacher drew a spiderman web on his cast, and he took it all in stride. He even took a week of swimming lessons wearing it.

Our family vacation in the summer was a week cycling in PEI. The provincial parks were really nice- beautiful white sand beaches. We stayed at a lovely Bed and Breakfast and had a nice day visiting a new small business where a couple had set up a room in their home full of lego to build. We had lots of ice-cream and Ben learned to ride a bike in the parking lot outside one of our hotels.

We all had our projects last summer. Will's was to contribute to community advocacy in our area to try to prevent the demolition of 19 homes to create a parking lot. He had an article about it published in the local paper, and met a lot of people in our community because of his efforts. 

Another project this summer was an enormous kitchen renovation. Fun at times, and stressful at others. I have to say, I love the new space. Better storage, a gorgeous floor that used to be a basketball court , and a bar height table we now use for everything (cooking, eating, colouring Paw Patrol pictures, playing Uno).

Clara's favorite hobbie right now is "playing babies." She also loves to be with Ben, and has somehow convinced him to move to the top bunk in his room so that she can sleep on the bottomw. Ben's favourite hobbey is Lego. I can't even begin to describe how much he loves Lego. There was a specific Lego boat he wanted for Christmas since early November, and we had to limit him to only asking about it once per day. It was all he'd hoped for. He is also enjoying starting to learn to play the piano with an excellent teacher.  

I'm enjoying learning to play the guitar, and Will is enjoying sewing... and running... lots of running. 

 

This fall's cutest moments were Ben's Lego birthday and Hallowe'en. We also had a very relaxed family Christmas which was a turning point for me. The summer and early fall had been a very difficult period t work. My position changed, there were (and still are) challenging interpersonal dynamics, and my good friend with the team ended up leaving. It raised some big questions about what I'd like in a job, and I'm still working through them. But the Christmas break gave me breathing room and a good chance to see that my job is just one part of my life. 

OK, this is a long post. I'll wrap it up, but if you want to catch the highlights one last time, the video below will do the job! Those kids are pretty cute!!!