Provincial Gymnastic Championchip

This past weekend was the provincial gymnastic championships. It was held in Kensington, Pei.
Inorder to be invited to participate in this event you needed to have done well in your school and school zone meets. Still there were many students there ready to compete. This was for pre novice, novice and bantam. Wow, we were really treated, some of these students were amazing. This year again we were there to cheer on two of our boys. Caleb came in 6th in the vault and 8th over all. Wow, great job Caleb. Benjamin was 1st on vault and 1st over all. Wow, great job to you to. I am very proud of my boys, they work really hard at this and really enjoy it so much.
But the real thanks and appreciation needs to go to Chris Meuse. He is an amazing gym teacher. Well, to tell you the truth, he is much more than that. He truely cares for his students and takes every opportunity to build them in skill and character. He is one teacher that I would love to be able to put threw the photocopier. HAha! No, really I am very thankful for his work with my kids. Thanks for a great gymnastic year again.

Jack Frost Children's Winter Festival

Wow! Can you say amazing? This was a great winter escape for a weekend. I am sorry that I am posting so late but I just could not let this pass by. The Jack Frost festival is held each winter in Charlottetown, PEI and is a child's paradise, that is a winter paradise. The festival opens on Friday night and goes threw until Sunday afternoon. We just attended on Friday and Saturday and we had our money's worth, no problem. Jack Frost is spread over three different venues and caters to children from baby to age 10 in my opinion. The venues were all pretty close together but there were free shuttle buses making a continuous loop over the weekend. The first venue I will discuss was the outside one. This area was decorated in a storybook theme, kinda. There were ice and snow sculptures everywhere. There was a facade of a castle welcoming you at the front. Inside we saw a dragon and an icehouse village and at night some of these had different coloured lights shining on them. We saw lots of different ice/snow sculptures that were being judged I think. It was all very beautiful; however, the childrens' favorite parts were the ice slides. There were three of them. One of the slides were a little smaller, than bigger and the largest, actually carried the rider down on a tube. Man, did those riders fly. There was also a show with past, present and future olimpians of tramopline, skiing and snowboarding that did a show to music. There was also nightly fireworks and tons of storybook characters around to greet the children. One end also included a basketball area and an outdoor playground with climbing wall. Imagaine all that fun, just at one venue.
The second venue was at a near by mall. The mall enclosed a science show, children's musican, a dance room, a princess dress up room and a super hero training camp. Wow, my fingers are getting tired.
The last venue was at a civic center. This venue had several live shows going on several times each day. The shows were: the backyardagins and some enviromental super heros. There was also a indoor playground. This area was huge and resembled a small fair. There were several rides, games and consession stands. They even had a place for the kids to play guitar hero. The younger kids really enjoyed the petting zoo and pony rides. Yep, I even said pony rides. We could have spent the weekend in this place alone.
It was a little cold on Friday night but Saturday was perfect. The tickets were bought with Christmas money from dear old Grammie. Thanks so much Grammie for an amazing and memorable weekend.

Thank you Santa

I am writing to share and not brag! Really, I am. This past Christmas, Santa brought me a Kitchen Aid. The one just like this picture. I was so thrilled and excited. I knew that we would become great friends. I had wanted one for many years. My family loves homemade bread and other homemade bake goods. As the family has grown in numbers over the years, they have also grown in appetites. I am soon learning that when your family is this size, that some higher quality tools need to be used. We seem to be able to break or wear out a lot of stuff as it is used more in our house than in most. Like for today for example. I made five loaves of homemade bread, a pan of rolls, four dozen peanut butter cookies and two dozen sugar cookies. I won't even tell you how fast that will go. I am very grateful that Santa knew just what I needed. Boy, he is a know all and see all kind of guy.

Gaining and Losing

I was just over at Jen and Barb's Mom life, http://www.jenandbarbmomlife.com/ and watched a great little video clip. It was entitled, " Can't seem to get your act together?" What a great little piece. The life coach that they had on seemed to have the right personal experience to speak on the issue. I love the advise that she gave at the end of the segment. First, the segment was on being a new mom and finding it difficult to get out of the mommy rut. Man, I sure could have used a hour on the shrink couch for this one, I enjoyed the last comment. She said to remember that this is temporary. I know that she is right. My oldest now 19 years old has shown me how quickly they move out of that dependent stage. My youngest is only 15 months, I know there is a huge span, but don't forget that there is six more children in between those two, has already seemed to be developing so fast. I look forward to the day that I will have more time to take care of other things but I am also enjoying my time with my two little ones still at home. I agree that we all need to be careful as it is so easy to fall in the mommy rut but we can do little things that will help this:
1. Spend some time we other adults, even with your children there too.
2. Set a time, even if it is short for a hobby, this time will continue to grow as your children grow.
3. Take time to organize and beautify your home while your there.
4. Take good care of your health; sleeping, eating, and exercising.
5. Remember this is temporary.
I hope that these tips can help you to get yourself out of the mommy rut when you happen to fall in. Remember also, that you are not alone. There are many other mothers out there right now in the same situation, that is why it is so good to get together.