Christine has been anxious to have something posted to YouTube. She thought the boys’ LEGO videos were neat, but she isn’t quite up to making her own. The other day she was dancing to Acapella, a new song by Karmin (which song Christine absolutely loves), and I told her I’d record it. Here she is, in all her dancing glory 🙂
Here is the latest in the LEGO stop motion movies. This one was actually done before the Spider-Man one, but I didn’t get it done until today. Andrew and I made up some lines, and then he, Matthew and I recorded them. Fun stuff!
Matthew got the LEGO Batman DVD for his birthday, and one of the extra features was about some stop motion videos using LEGO figures. This inspired Andrew to make his own. For Andrew’s birthday he got a LEGO set from 2002 from the first Spider-Man movie called First Chase. This is when Uncle Ben is killed and Spider-Man is wearing his home-made costume with the balaclava mask. Andrew recreated the scene using 426 photos. I put them together and we found the theme song to the old cartoon to have as background music. We hope you enjoy it.
Most of you probably know that Christine still wets the bed at night. She wears a pull-up, and she doesn’t just “leak”… the pull-up is so full when she drops it in the garbage can it makes a loud thump. Things that we’d read online said that a huge percentage of kids will be dry overnight by the time they are 5 (if not beforehand), and if not, to check with your doctor. So we took Christine to see our family doctor, who referred her to a pediatrician. The pediatrician wanted a “voiding cystourethrogram” done. This essentially an x-ray of a bladder as it fills up and when it is emptied. You can read more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiding_cystourethrogram
We took her to the hospital a couple of weeks ago to have it done. She did NOT like the catheter. She kept saying that she wanted the pin out.
They filled her bladder, and then told he she could pee. She cried and cried. She was lying on the cold x-ray table and just wouldn’t pee. They tried for several minutes to convince her it was ok, and then ulitmately the radiologist said she could go to the bathroom. She was much happier after that.
They didn’t find anything wrong, which is a good thing. I guess some day she’ll start waking up to go to the bathroom. Until then, we just have to keep buying pull-ups.
We got a copy of the CD full of x-rays, and Christine was thrilled to see her insides 🙂
I’m later than normal getting this out, but there is still 6 weeks until Christmas, so there is still lots of time.
The drawing of the names has been done, and the results are below. Most people are buying for people they haven’t bought for before. Three people are buying for people they bought for before, with the most recent being 3 years ago.
Note: Please look it over and let me know if there are any mistakes. We don’t want people buying for each other as part of the gift exchange. We also don’t want spouses buying for each other as part of the gift exchange.
Here are some guidelines:
We’ll be hosting the Christmas Eve party and Christmas Day dinner. We’ll send around another email later with the details of who is bringing what.
In case anyone is wondering, we are definitely getting in the Christmas spirit. It looks like we’ll be putting up our Christmas trees (we have 2) on Nov 19 as part of Family Home Evening.
Lastly, this is the kids favourite song/video at Christmas:
Well, Halloween has come and gone. We ended up with a lot of rain (remnants of Sandy), but it was barely “spitting” out while we were trick or treating. The kids each got a huge bag full of stuff… enough to last them for a couple of days anyway 🙂
Below are some pictures of the St Catharines kids and the pumpkins we carved. Then I’ve also included the various pictures from the other kids as well.
Matthew really wanted a couple of turtles for his birthday. We looked into it, and new baby red-eared sliders were $50 a piece. If we had to get a tank, filter, light, etc it was going to cost us a lot. I looked on Kijiji and found an ad for a complete set including a 1-year-old turtle and a 4-year-old turtle for $45. The ad said that the turtles liked to go outside and play on the grass and that they had “great personalities”. Matthew was very excited about that, so we went to get them. One turtle is quite large, while the other one is just kind of big. We got a large tank, sunning dock, light, turtle food, turtle snacks, some rocks, a filter plus the turtles. It was a great deal.
When we picked up the turtles, the woman said that they liked to eat guppies. We went to the pet store on Thursday night and asked about guppies, and they said they didn’t have them. I asked what the cheapest thing was that turtles would eat, and they replied, “Anything!” They said that you could get a dozen rosey reds for a couple of bucks, so we went for them. We ended up getting probably 3 dozen for the same price. When we put them in the tank, the turtles eagerly hunted their new food.
I had no idea turtles ate like this. It’s pretty neat. Andrea was with us and took a video. You can see it below or directly on the YouTube site:
On Monday I took Matthew and Christine to the dentist. This was Christine’s first time there. She was very good, and didn’t seem to be nervous. She was, however, very quiet once she sat on the chair in the exam room. We might need to get one of those chairs for home if it will keep her quiet!! 🙂
Here are a couple of pictures of her with Dr. Michalko:
We had a nice visit with Jeff and Evy and the kids Saturday night and Sunday morning. We went to Sacrament Meeting with them in the morning, and then came home.
The kids played, and then we had a wonderful lunch. There was a ham, macaroni and cheese, broccoli, mushrooms, asparagus, salad, and more. Yummy!
We would have liked to stay longer, but we had to get going, and we left their house just before 2 pm. We filled up the van, and got on our way. Along the way, the kids watched lots of movies.
Here is the timeline:
The hotel was pretty basic, but had comfy beds, so we had a decent night’s sleep. We got up on Monday morning (our 14th anniversary) and had the continental breakfast at the hotel. We were done at the hotel by 8:30 or so and on our way back to Canada. Here is the timeline:
Along the way, we have also seen a few more license plates:
We unloaded the van and Grandma and Grandpa got their care loaded up. We said our goodbye, and they were on their way.
The kids helped us unpack and get organized, and then Andrew and Matthew put together their new LEGO sets they got at Downtown Disney. Christine wanted to play Mario Kart Wii right away.
We had a fantastic 2 1/2 weeks, but it is nice to get back home.
It was a sad day as we packed the van and left Florida, but it was a good day as we had a nice drive to North Carolina and got to see Jeff, Evy, Ryan, Lillie, Lauren, and their house.
The boys and I got up this morning at around 7 am and went swimming for the last time. The air was cooler than it has been, but the pool was as warm as always, so there was quite a bit of steam coming off the pool. We swam for half an hour and then got out to get ready to go.
We left the house at around 8:30 and headed to Ponderosa for their breakfast buffet. It was similar to the one we had at the Sizzlin Grill last week, but the quality of the food was a bit better. But hey, for $3.99, you can’t complain too much 🙂
After having breakfast and filling up the van, we were on the road by 10:06. Here is the timeline…
At some point along the way, I took this picture…
We had some pizza with everyone when we got there and some ice cream for dessert. The kids played around until around 10 pm and then went to bed.
As you can see, it didn’t take Christine long to dress up in Lillie’s and Lauren’s princess dresses (first Cinderella, then Aurora). She was in her glory.
After the rest of us crashed, Lisa and Evy stayed up until after 1 am. I’m sure they were talking about how great their husbands and kids are 🙂
We noticed lots of Ontario plates along the way. It was strange to see so many. We don’t know if it was because everyone else was like us going home, or if something else was going on.
The only license plate that we saw that we hadn’t seen the whole trip yet was South Dakota.
On Sunday we are going to Sacrament Meeting with Jeff & Evy, and then coming home to visit for a bit. We hope to be on the road by 1 pm.