The snow fort

Every Canadian kid loves a good snow fort. The bigger, the better! The best forts are ones that go on and on forever. They have to be strategic so that bigger kids cannot break it or smaller kids cannot invade it. Good snow forts have the perfect snow to ice ratio. It also helps to have pretend sofas and refrigerators in it ;) A steady supply of snow food is good too. If you have a snow fort, you have to spend all recess, lunch time and after school hours to make it perfect. Actually, it is in a constant state of fixing and improving. It is always renovation time when it melts or gets buried by a snow or ice storm. Another rule is that you have to always protect your snow fort. Also, if you don't contribute to the building of a snow fort, you are not allowed in it unless you have special permission. The best thing about a good snow fort is, when the owners are not around, you can explore- even if you are not a part of it. This afternoon, while we were waiting for Nicka to come outside, Oliver got to sit in his brother's snow fort. How cool! Then he showed me his.... ice carving station and all ;)

xox

Oliver hanging out in Nicka's snow fort.... He looks blurry because he wouldn't stay still for the photo!

It is always cool to hang out in someone else's snow fort!

Oliver at his ice carving station ;)

The week so far...

I am almost finished grading.... and I am SO thankful! This week has been filled with (finally) gorgeous weather, a chance to participate in a school run (1.5km) with Nicka, a slow return to sanity (or family insanity by means of selfies), a sunroof that we can finally put down, outside play time and lots of flowers that are slowly coming out of hibernation. Needless to say, all of these factors make for a good early part of the week.

xox to you all!

Glimpses of a play date

On the whole, I love having my boys' friends over. We have a pretty "kid-friendly" home (see definition below) and, honestly, I kind of like the bustle of the boys.... until it becomes tornado-like (see definition below)- and then I can flip. Over the past 2 years or so, when Alexander and Nicka have friends over, I have definitely become the "not cool mother who is cramping our style" and just tolerated... unless I have snacks, then I am awesome and am allowed downstairs... but only for dropping off the snacks and then my awesome-ness is over and no photos allowed ;) With Oliver, I am still in the "will call mother in case we do something really cool, funny or someone gets hurt or is scared of the dogs" category when he has friends over. Thing with Oliver is that he always has a friend over... or is away at a friend's house... and it always seems to be the same boy. Jokingly, we consider this boy our 4th son because he is always with Oliver. Actually, they play so well together that it is an absolute pleasure to have him over. Anyway, this weekend, I was called in to witness the cool thing that they did (ie: bury the visiting boy in the toy pile). I had to remember E.T. (see definition if you don't remember the 1980's movie) but they didn't get the reference ;) I enjoyed the small glimpse into their play date. These two, together, are hilarious and I am so lucky to still be allowed "in"... and I know that only a short period of time remains.....

Wishing you all a great day! xxo

"kid-friendly": most of our furniture is either broken, stained or very well-loved so they cannot do much more damage than there already is ;)

tornado-like: Alexander's 11th birthday party sleep over.... just leave it to your imaginations and then add x10 ;)

E.T. the movie: see link

Guess what I have in my hand... (hint: wet, sticky, made of sugar and looks like a little bear)

Here is E.T..... I mean, Oliver's buddy.... ;)

Their favourite thing to to: watch movies on my tablet in their "tent". Yes, this photo actually contains 2 little boys... ;)

The neighbourhood posse

We are very lucky that our neighbours, who are also close friends of ours, have boys the same ages as Alexander and Nicklas. Bonus is that they also really like Oliver and take care of him in a sort of big-brother way (they first met him when he was one day old!). Today, the boys all got together to go "biking", which in our case was more "scootering" because we haven't had the chance to fill up tires and oil chains on the bikes yet.... OK- we win the worst-parents-in-the-world-award ;) Anyway, between all the biking and scootering (which later turned into street soccer), the boys had a lot of fun. Oliver even got into the act- tricycle and imaginary sword in hand! They absolutely terrorized the neighbourhood and, luckily, no police were called in so all was good ;)

Did I mention that it was 13degrees C today? Did I mention that I LOVED it? ;)

Tough biker guy!

The posse

Watch out- I am armed!

Dangerous with his rainbow bubble sword ;)

Street soccer action