this morning

everyone left me

by bus

by motorcycle

and all I have left with me

are knots in my stomach

hope you are having a great first day back at school...

last few days of summer

The days are getting shorter. The days are getting cooler. We are all enjoying our last days of summer lounging around in the morning. Next week the routine of making lunches and sending kids off to school will start again.

Soccer season has ended for the little ones, they both did so well and were so pleased to receive their trophies after their tournament day. Big sis' turn this coming Sunday.

Its the twins last gymnastics lesson today. They have been in the pre-competitive level all summer. Baby girl will keep going in the fall but I had to pull out baby boy as he will be starting hockey instead. Kind of breaks my heart to pull him out as he is doing really well, but there are only so many extra-curricular activities we can juggle :(

We had a High School Musical kind of week-end. The second one had its world premiere last Friday night. A whole bunch of kids got together to view it a friend's house complete with lots of snacks. Of course, we had to watch the first one before that. And now, we are all humming the songs from the movie!

We went out and bought big sis a new computer. Got really tired of finding her on mine all the time. Its an early b day and x mas gift :)

Spent all of Saturday at Greekfest, (some amazing pics on that site)watching big sis dance in her group as well as other troupes who came from Montreal. All 3 kids had fun volunteering at the kids' tent. Met so many people we know there. Ate way too many loukoumades. Looking forward to next year already!

The twins are so happy with their new feat: they can start swinging on their own and jump off when the swing is up high in the air. They've been out there in our park doing it for hours.

Big sis went to school yesterday for a half-day orientation: got her schedule, her locker and found out who was and wasn't in her class. Luckily, most of all her best friends are in her class, one of the most important things!

Yesterday, we went along with 20 other kids and their moms down to Morrisburg:
Prehistoric World in the morning, picnic lunch in a park by the St Lawrence and an afternoon at Upper Canada Village. I hadn't been there since I was in 5th grade. Oh what fun for all! But boy was I pooped last night!

All right, enough procrastination, time to hit some bills now, yuk. Will post pics later!

one of those mornings

Kids went shopping with dad last night and baby girl left behind a special trinket of hers. She's still devastated and crying about it this morning. And of course no one in that store has found it. Sigh.

Didn't have a ring tone on the phone all morning, took me over an hour to figure out that one of the phones just died. Sigh.

MIL came here two weeks ago and left a watermelon in the cool room in the basement. Except she forgot to tell me. So this morning, I went down there to get something and found the remnants of one exploded watermelon with juice e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. Spent the last 2 hours cleaning that up. Gross. Can't get the smell off my brain. Ain't going to be eating watermelon for a while. Sigh.

And of course it's raining too. Sigh.

Things can only get better now, right?

greekfest

When I fell in love with hubby, oh so many years ago, his ethnicity wasn't much of an issue with either of us. But with the appearance of kids, we became more keen in sharing our respective heritages with them. Hence why they attend French school and Greek school too on Saturday mornings. Starting last year, I enrolled all 3 of them in Greek dancing as well. Big sis has done amazingly well and has performed several times at several events. Now that our community's annual greekfest is underway, my kids are performing a total of 6 times all together. Big sis is also volunteering for the first time at the kids tent doing face painting mostly. Needless to say, we are spending a lot of time there! And after the dancing is done, we get to eat some scrumptious authentic Greek food. And I have to admit, my favorite is having a "frappé" (cold whipped coffee) and some "loukoumades" (fried balls of dough sprinkled with cinnamon and drizzled with honey.

OPA!!!

soccer family

Soccer season is approaching the end. At 3 nights a week, we've spent our fair share of time in local parks. Its been a great season, all 3 kids improving tremendously in their skills. A few more games and year-end tournaments are all that's left.

As one proud mom who kept track of three sets of schedules and fields, performing taxi services, coordinating snack duties, e-mailing parents to keep them abreast of team details, who sat by the sidelines watching and cheering week after week, making sure everyone had clean uniforms and kept hydrated, I will now bestow some well deserved awards:

Most Valuable Player: big sis! who is always there to encourage her teammates and keep up the team spirit and fill in whatever position she's needed in

Most Improved Player: baby girl! who did a complete 100% reversal from her attitude last year when she never spoke to any of her teammates or coaches, who never once touched the ball during play and who is now "right in there" taking the ball down the field, chatting up a storm with everyone and having pure fun

Best Athlete of the Year: baby boy! he lives for this sport, he can visualize plays that his teammates just don't, he plays intensely and passionately, he practices all the time, he encourages his teammates from the sidelines, he has tremendous abilities in form and function and power and the cutest thing ever is his fist pumping after scoring, a true natural

Best Coach of the Year: hubby! who will come home after a hard day at work, put back his supper in 10 minutes flat and head out. He has coached big sis for the past 5 years, parents always telling me on the sidelines how much they appreciate his devotion and expertise and who this year pitched in with both baby boy and baby girl's teams when needed.

Best Moment of the Year: last Friday night is twin's night as usual with hubby at one park with one of them and me at another park with the other. Their respective teams are loosing 1-0. But the scores then get equalized when baby boy and baby girl both score for their teams at the same time at different fields!! (we know this as we called each other on our cells). That was beyond cool :)

the good, the bad and the ugly...the pics

Thanks guys for all your comments!!!

Yes, the good will prevail forever as that is what I caught on film, uhhh on digital card I guess is more the proper term now?. The bad and especially the ugly will get relegated to the depths of our memory banks.

Here are a few moments for your enjoyment: