Ooooh.  My blog book is almost done.  I added a whole bunch of pictures of Marek to the end of the book.  A bunch that weren’t in the orignial blog postings.  The rest is exactly as it was in the blog.  I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Ok.  As promised, pictures of Ben’s birthday…

I made a Wall-e cake for Ben.  It’s basically a Wall-e toy sitting on a rectangle cake with some “cubes” piled up in front of Wall-e.  I did the whole thing from scratch.  Even the icing, which was a whipped cream icing.  I was so proud that the whipped cream stayed firm.  I was so worried that it would melt and go all runny.  Wouldn’t that have been attractive?

Ben was so funny.  As he opened his gifts, he was placing them behind him, in sort of a pyramid.  By the end, it looked like a toy store display!

I still can’t believe he’s 5.  Definitely a little man now!

Ben is 5 years old!  His official birthday was yesterday.  I can’t believe he’s so big now.  Where did the last 5 years go?  I’ll post some birthday pictures as soon as I can.  But this is what he looks like now:

Ben has also started skating lessons.  His tiny skates are soooo cute!  He did WAY better than I did when I first started skating.  Apparently I just stood there and cried.  Here’s my little man – his first time ever on skates.  NHL here we come! 

Ugh.  What a COLD thanksgiving!  It was freezing in Canmore.  The great thing about Canmore is, it’s nice anyway – even if it’s super cold.  I just can’t believe it’s essentially winter.  As I write this, it’s blizzardy outside.  It’s way too early!  I was hoping for another nice fall, but we went straight to winter.  Ugh.

But we really did have an awesome thanksgiving.  We played a ton of cards and had a ton of good food.  Merv and I even went to the Banff Springs hotel for our slightly belated anniversary dinner.  We had fondue and it was soooooo good!   This is us in Banff:

Next week is Ben’s birthday.  I can’t believe he’s going to be 5 already!  I’ll definitely post some pics….

Busy Busy Busy….

Yesterday was our anniversary.  7 years already.  Where does the time go?

Ben’s birthday is in 2 weeks.  He’s going to be 5 already.  Where does the time go?  Oh wait.  I said that already.

I’m busy taking this blog and turning it into a book.  I’ve taken all the posts, pictures and comments from all of 2008 and put them in a book format.  Now I’m doing the editing.  It’s a huge job, but I think it’s going to turn out great.  And it’ll be a great way to have a documented story of Marek’s life and someday, Ben can read it himself.  I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Well, Ben is settling in well at school.  And I went to meet the teacher night this week.  I took my mom too, which was fun because it’s the school she used to teach at and now she’s on the other side of the whole parent-teacher thing.  Anyway, I love Ben’s teacher and I think it’s going to be a great year.  It’s french immersion, but it’s not quite as much “immersion” as I would have liked.   She still speaks a lot of english to the kids, but Ben’s pretty fluent already, so hopefully there will be more and more french.  He loves it though and that’s the important part.

Ben has also started gymnastics and I think he likes that almost as much as kindergarten.  Almost every day, he asks if it’s a gymnastics day.  Nope, only Saturdays.  But it’s so much fun to watch him run and jump and climb.

And this past weekend we went to a show.  Merv and I took Ben to see the Backyardigans.  The whole thing was a tiny bit cheesy, but the kids loved it.  It’s total chaos in the audience, but it was fun.

This weekend we’re getting family pictures done.  We haven’t had one done in ages, so it’ll be good.  I’ll post a good one or two when we get them back.  I hope the weather holds because we’re planning the photo shoot outside!

Today was the first day of kindergarten.   I was so excited about it, you’d think it was MY first day of kindergarten.  People asked if I was going to cry when I dropped Ben off.  Yeah right.  Ben quickly waved “Bye Mom!” and was gone.  Even, if I’d wanted to cry, I wouldn’t have had time.  Besides, it was way too exciting.  His teacher is super nice and I think he’s going to have a great time there.   And it’s neat to think he’s going to the same school I did.  Here’s his first day of school picture.  Enjoy!   Before we know it, he’ll be headed off to University!

Ok, it’s about time I posted something…  Honestly, it’s been pretty quiet.  We’ve been enjoying the summer while it’s here.  We’ve already seen geese flying south, which totally scares me.  I’m so not ready for winter!!!  As it is, Ben starts kindergarten next week, on Friday.  Where did the summer go? 

Today, we went to the space/science center and finally got to see Marek’s star.  Unfortunately his name is spelled wrong, so I’ll phone about that next week, but it’s still really cool.  It’s not HIS star in the sense that it’s named after him, but it’s dedicated to him at our local planetarium.  His star is in the little dipper so next time you look up at the little dipper, that’s my little man shining down at you.  Here’s the picture:

Ben had a great time also.  He always does.  They have a really great area for kids to play in.  And he goes quite often his my folks, so he was able to give us the tour.  Here he is, out at the font:

Let’s see…  what else have we done this summer…  we finished the deck (like actually stained it finally!).  It looks great and is definitely a nice place to hang out (without the snow we had in the last pictures I posted).  It’s a nice colour.  Here’s a pic (sorry, it’s a little dark – don’t ask why I was taking pictures at night):

Let’s see, along the same lines of going to the science center, our other vacationy type things that we did at home included a little bit of boating:

Oh, and we checked out the fort:

Oh, and last but not least, we had a visit from a very strange little man…

We had an awesome little mini-holiday.  We went to my cousin’s wedding in Kamloops and then stopped in Drumheller before spending a couple of days in Canmore.  It was a very relaxing holiday.  Ben wore his kilt for the wedding (Didn’t know he had one – did you?  Well, don’t expect to see Merv in one anytime soon.  For some reason, he says he’s not scottish enough)   Anyway, Ben fit right in with my little cousin Liam…

And here’s Ben giving a sermon at the little church in Drumheller…

I’ll post more pictures as I go through them all…

Happy Birthday to me!!!     I successfully made another trip around the sun.