Wow it's been a long time since I've blogged!  I was reading other people's blogs and thought I really should go back to mine.

So what has all happened in almost a year!

DD1 is in grade 2 and loving her teacher (again - she is in a split 1/2 class)!  I think she is improving on her reading and has started taking piano lessons.  She really seems to love practicing piano and hopefully that will keep up.  She has started to read chapter books at home (not sure how much difficulty she is having or how well she is doing with them) but she will turn on the light and read when she's supposed to be going to sleep.  The one evening I told her to finish up and go to sleep....she asked if I meant the book or the chapter.  Obviously, it was not just understood that I meant the chapter.

DS1 is in SK and also going to JK 2 days a week (so he is full time in school).  He loves school.  He is also taking piano lessons although not as interested in practicing as his sister.  He loves lego and will spend most of his time after school playing lego.

DD2 is 3 and just pretty much potty trained herself.  We attempted kinda but didn't try too hard (and it's hard with a new baby) and one day she told me she needed to go and has only had a couple accidents since. She seems to be enjoying just having mom and her baby brother home when the older kids are at school.  She can be quite the clown and is always finding something to laugh about or trying to be silly.

DS2 is our newest addition.  He is 2 months old now and growing like a weed.  I don't even think he looks like he's 2 months based on size.  He has started to improve on night time sleeping and because I typed this I am sure it won't happen again tonight!  He was born 10 days early after having my water break a couple days before he was born!  DS2 is finally starting to find his thumb (not very good at it yet) and I am liking that.

I have been organizing the vendor part of the kids school's Fall Fair.  Other great parts of the Fall Fair are being organized by other parents and teachers from the school.  It will be a great time again I am sure!

I have continued to earn gift cards with Swagbucks but have also started using Zoombucks and Irazoo (but not as faithfully as Swagbucks).  I have also started using Superpoints which is an invite only site.  You click on the "Super Lucky" button and randomly get points.  Pretty easy - some days you get a lot of points others, not so much.  Comment if you want an invite.  They are one time use invites.  I will also post a few invites here: http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/adbmq9, http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/6g5p93, http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/pxsetb, http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/wjy6j6, and http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/u6vki2.  


I have earned a lot with these sites.  On Swagbucks alone in about 2 years I have earned over $400 in amazon.ca gift cards.  I've redeemed for household items, movies, wii games and paid for the majority of the cost of a tablet (if the price stayed the sale price I would have had it completely paid for by now).

I am taking my 4th (and final) maternity leave from work.  Ah it's nice to be off work, but I know when the year is up I'll be ready to go back.   I find that I have an easier time with getting stuff done around the house being off work.  I have started de-cluttering and re-organizing so that hopefully it will continue to be easier when I go back to work.

Our new sidebar pictures (with the exception of ds2) were taken by our talented friend.  You can see her work on Facebook and here is the blog post she did of our family pictures, we kind of cut it close on getting those pictures done!  DS2 was born a couple days after the pictures were done.  Before we had the pictures Sarah had mentioned wanting to take pictures of the girls in their matching pillow case dresses and also had mentioned liking my black maternity dress (ok my only maternity dress), so I made sure to use them for the pictures.  Based on the light pillow case dresses and my black dress I had no idea what to put on the boys!  DH's shirt had some yellow striped and ds1 looks good in yellow so I chose that.  I think it all looks great together, so I'm glad I didn't stress too much about matching.

Tomorrow I plan on going to the gym for the first time (since high school) with friends.  Got to try and lose this baby weight.  Hopefully I survive.

Well that's all I can think of for updating right now....I will blame it on baby brain still.