You Are My Wild

I've been coming across a few blogs where parents are participating in a project called, You Are My Wild - a project where they take portraits of their children each week and share them on a group blog.  I love the idea, and LOVE so many of the portraits, but I knew that a) there's no way I have the time or energy to participate in this each week and b) there's no way my family would put up with even more of my camera in their faces!!!!

However, I've decided to see if I can't come up with one portrait of each of them once a month instead of once a week.  And since this is the last day of January, it's time to officially start this project for 2013 :-)  So without further ado, here are my wilds, throughout the month of January:-)

Clip'N'Climb

Check out what we did this weekend!!!!!!!  The kids were invited to a birthday party, which gave us the perfect excuse to check out this rock-climbing gym we've been meaning to check out forever now.  It's split into two parts, one fun room designed largely for kids, and birthday parties, and another area that is for more pure rock-climbing.  It seems to be in an old church, and if it wasn't so far away, I think we'd be going MUCH more regularly.  What a blast!  Next time I'm absolutely suiting up with a harness and climbing some of those routes - how much fun does this look??!!!!  (however, Kea did wake up this morning complaining about sore muscles - I'm sure my muscles would have been MUCH more sore if I'd been climbing!!!!)

This first route has circles that move clockwise and counter-clockwise as you step on the nobs, VERY tricky!

 I loved the variety of different routes they had, with so many neat climbing techniques.  This is long poles to pull yourself up with.  There were trees to climb, various ropes and rope ladders, one where you held small poles in your hands and shoved them in holes as you pulled yourself up, another with velcro gloves that you stuck to the wall - so very imaginative!!!!  And almost overwhelming to the senses:-)

 Another view of the rotating dials......

 This one was called Morse Code, and had various short and long dashes - no one made it up very high on this one!

 You can see how the kids were learning various rock-climbing moves on the different routes, and strengthening their muscles.....I think we're all feeling inspired to find more outdoor climbing this summer:-)  (once we train our muscles a wee bit more.......)

 These stepping towers were in the centre of the room, and I have to say, it made my stomach feel queasy just watching Tiegan go up - and I was very impressed to see her make it to the top!  And then jump off, yikes!

This route was a race, against the clock and your buddy on the run next to you.  

 Colourful lights in plumbing pipes - so many neat ideas!!  And we only got to try about half of them - definitely a sign that we need to go back here soon.  And on a weekend that Jamie's not traveling for work, as he was pretty jealous of our afternoon here:-)  Now to work on setting up a gym like this in our neck of the woods.........

Sunday

And then overnight on Sunday, the temperatures rose, the snow melted into a gross, slushy mess and the fog rolled in.  We were super happy to have spent the previous day outside, as this was very much an inside kind of day:-)

Here's a shot of what one of the forts looked like after the shift in weather - 

 and a few shots of our moody property:-)  In the end, I loved the excuse to curl up with a cup of tea and my book - I'm just not looking forward to freezing temperatures returning and turning these roads into a massive ice-rink.  Ugh!

Saturday

Saturday was a perfect snow day - quite mild, making the snow really wet and fun to play with.  Since it's actually pretty rare to have such sticky snow, we wanted to get outside to take advantage of it, and made a couple of snow forts in order to have a big snowball fight!  

Our friend Ethan has a new baby sister, and so we thought it would be fun to invite him over for a fun-filled afternoon - remembering well how exhausting those early days were with two or more kids!  We played lego, ate pizza and clobbered him in a snowball fight:-)

 Jamie LOVED Ryland's brick-building tool and created impressive towers and fortified walls!

At first Ry hid behind the walls of his fort, but then realized it was hard to stay protected AND have good access to throwing snowballs, so then he ventured further afield.....

 I love this series of photos, once the boys got brave enough to dump a snowball on Jamie....the terror on their faces is priceless!  (and no, Ry did not shove Ethan down, he tripped!  Honest!)

A Day in the Life - Jan. 4th, 2013 (or, as it turned out, my day with Ry!)

It was another late morning this morning - we've gotten rather used to these during the school holidays and are in for rather a shock when school starts up again!!!!

TWO little monkeys in our bed this morning, crazy how crowded a king sized bed can get:-)

It's always nice to have a long cuddle in a warm bed, though, when this is the view out our window:-)

Time to get the fire going, to bring the house up from 17 to the more comfortable 20 or 21:-)  (You'll notice bits of my little helper all day long in these photos!!!!!)

Enjoying all our holiday cards for a bit longer - soon it'll be time to take this all down.

It seemed like a pancake kind of day today, so we pulled everything out and started mixing....

Jamie had slipped out first thing this morning with the van in order to pick up our newly fixed snowblower - he was pretty excited to get it working, and had a fun little game of moving the blower part in order to cover us all with snow anytime we stepped outside:-)

Looking for maple syrup, after getting dressed...

So nice to have a big sister who is willing to cut up your pancakes:-)

The girls got a bunch of curling irons and straighteners for Christmas, so have been having fun doing their hair...

Enjoying my last eggnog and coffee of the holidays - my body will be in a bit of a shock when I return to healthier eating after the holidays:-)

Ry and I had a play date planned, and a few errands to run, so I went out to brush off the car and warm it up a little.  The winter sure is beautiful and I love skiing and skating and sledding, but I sure can't wait to build a heated garage one year:-)

Tiegan was getting ready for another playdate up at our neighbours' house - they have a grand daughter her age, so she loves to go up and play.  AND they have horses to drive chariots behind or ski behind and chickens to collect eggs from - and pretty much everything that makes this girl sing!

First stop Ry and I had was the Almonte library - dropping off books and picking up movies for the weekend

Then lunch with friends in their new house.

we made paper airplanes

and played knights

and painted the snow red and purple

and buried the boys over and over again!

When it was time to leave, we drove V.E.R.Y. slowly behind a tractor for a while, on our way

to the Carp library, where we had different books to drop off and more books on hold to pick up! (Kea's become obsessed with the Phantom of the Opera these days, so she'd ordered in the movie and the CD - which we've listened to at top volume over and over again!!!!!)

Then time to stop off at the grocery store

for a few odds and ends

Tiegan was home when we finally got home, and our neighbours had sent her home with a variety of different eggs from their different chickens!  So fun:-)  We can't wait to get our own chickens in the spring!

As always, there was the never-ending pile of laundry to tackle

and Jamie was excited to see that I'd found one of these at the library (you use it to see how much wattage various appliances are using)

I made hot chocolate and popcorn for a late afternoon snack

and the kids settled in to watch a movie (Madagascar 3 - they wanted Elf but it was out)

And I put my feet up for a few minutes, and read some of the new reading materials I'd picked up in town (and discovered a woman who is offering sewing classes in town this Jan. so signed up for them - really looking forward to that!!!!!)

Dinner was a hodge podge of requests as no one felt like cooking....Ry wanted to try some of those new eggs, and gave them an enthusiastic thumbs up.....

Tiegan took some turkey pot pie from the freezer

and the rest of us enjoyed some leftover chilli (two of us with steamed kale!)

After dinner, we did a bit of a clean up which means getting absorbed in various papers and playing with toys long forgotten........and much nagging from the parental units:-)

I uploaded my daily photo onto my blog and checked other peoples' blogs

while Jamie restocked the wood by our stove - can't believe how much wood we're using, but it's so nice to have a toasty warm house for free:-)  Well, for a lot of labour but no money!

The Christmas lights got taken down from the tree

and quiet time tea was consumed (with lots of honey!)

I've been fighting a chesty cough for a few days now, so decided to do a ginger bath, and have been drinking tonnes of ginger tea with lemon and honey.......

While that was all steeping, I tackled the dishes of today

while Jamie read bedtime stories.

Jamie usually tells the kids bedtime stories as he's laying with them in bed, and so when I found these story-telling dice I knew they'd be the perfect thing to put in his stocking!!!!!

And while he was weaving stories of bandits and magic wands and dangerous mice, I took advantage of the quiet to slip into my super hot ginger bath, determined to sweat out this nasty cold!!!!!

And that, my friends, was the end of another day in my life - good night!