Is this not completely adorable?!?!?


And Max, eating a doughnut at Grandma Jennie and Grandpa Joe's - I LOVE his lips!!! :D


That's all I have energy for tonight - back to work tomorrow, and I have a crap-load of laundry to do! :)

So tonight is a test. I've never uploaded a movie to my blog - so we will see if it works...



So weird, I hear this voice, know it's me, yet wonder if my mom was the one taking the video. ;)

I went into Max's room tonight to kiss him goodnight... (Awwww...!)


Then looked under the blankets (searching for toys) and found this:

LMAO!!!!!! I cracked up, ran upstairs and got Rick and the camera!!!! Hilarious!!!

Two nights ago Ella and Max were playing out on the deck after supper. THEN the drama began...

Ella came in with *are you ready?* A SLIVER.

Yes, a nice LARGE sliver in the palm of her hand. All I could think of was: "CRAP!". She's not exactly good at letting us get them out. Ugh!!

So we had a bath, and I hoped that it was gently fall out while she was scrubbing away, but alas, it stayed in there, nice and cozy. *Excuse me while I 'Grrrrr'...!*

After her bath Rick and I explained to her that we needed to get it out, which she agreed to with those big blue eyes. THEN we tried, and the drama began, ooooooh man!!! She was NOT happy with us! LOL! In the end, Rick was sitting/leaning on her and holding her arm out straight, while Ella screamed her head off, and I held her hand and pulled that sucker out. Really...she was so frozen by then (we had an ice cube to freeze the sliver location) that when I touched the 'area' of the sliver, she didn't even flinch!!

Long story - short (wait?!?) we got the sliver out. Now comes the good part...

When I put Ella and Max to bed, I told them a story (they love my crazy stories!). This story was about a girl named Princess Penelope who was playing in her big beautiful playground (all made of wood...do you see where this is going?), when she put her hand down, and felt a little pinch. Sure enough, when she looked at her hand, she had a SLIVER.

At this point, Ella looks up at me with HUGE blue eyes and says: "Just like ME Mommy!"

HAHA!! Really...honey? That's quite the coincidence eh? LOL!!!! Awesome!
So the story ends with the poor princess having to go the hospital because she wouldn't let her Mommy or Daddy (who were the King and Queen don't 'cha know) take the sliver out and she had to stay for THREE days. Ella was HORRIFIED. "THREE days Mommy? That's a LONG time"

Yes, honey...it is. ;)

I have no pics I've taken lately, so I'm stealing my mom's pics she took yesterday! (Thanks Mom!)



My beautiful Mama, who has not been in my blog before! HOW did that happen? Well, here she is. That funky Mama who rocks, yeah, that's my Mom. ;)


Note the knees?!? She had a REALLY fun time at recess today. ;)

Today we were outside a LOT. The weather was AWESOME!! So we decided to get the house all cleaned up and together so the kids could finally play in it. (We got it free from Rick's parents who moved, and didn't want it anymore! Yeah for FREE!!!!!)

So the kids helped me clean it...



Then (after getting completely changed...) they finally got to play in it! LOL!


What a fabulous day!! :D

Time you might ask? Well, I've realized that 'time' is an important thing. VERY important, and boy does it go fast. I've already been back to work for 2 weeks...and the kids are growing up so fast that I need to spend good, quality TIME with them. That is what my plan is now. I *thought* it was important before, but since I'm without them for so long now, and when I AM with them, it's a fight to be with each of them - it's become very high valued. So 'time' is where it's at at the Vries house!!

Easter was this weekend, and Ooooh, what a weekend! It started out with a trip to the One of a Kind Show in Toronto with my friend Angela and her mom. It was great fun! I got some GREAT finds - including this awesome dragon tail I got for Max:
(Note Ella's dragon costume too - see how short it is on her?!? LOL!)


Saturday we had a relaxing day, well...kind of - our relaxing Saturday started with a sleep-in (no ballet!!!!!!!!!!!!!) then a call to Nana to see if she could drive us to swimming! Luckily she could, so she brought us all for Ella and Max's last swimming lesson. Whew! Then home for naps, then groceries. Ahhh...good times. OH! The wind storm! I almost forgot - after we got home from groceries the skies looked ominous, so I quickly ran out to take the laundry from the line in. Man, that was fun...torrential winds made all the clothes slap me in the face, and blow away!! UGH! Not fun trying to take 4 loads of laundry off during THAT! BUT, I did get them in, at last. :)

Sunday morning (today!) the kids woke up to a kitchen table full off plastic eggs, and a note from the Easter Bunny telling them to find a chocolate egg each hidden somewhere under one of the plastic eggs. (This instead of an egg hunt - because of Baby Z who might find one before the big kids did!) Once they found their eggs, they got to go look for their baskets! Max just kills me - he is a chocoholic (not unlike his mother...??!?!?!) and immediately started unwrapping his chocolate eggs. Awesome! Nothing like chocolate for breakfast. No, really - THERE IS NOTHING LIKE CHOCOLATE FOR BREAKFAST....(excuse me while I drool a little...) :D

This is Max *trying* to smile with his mouth full of chocolate!

And Ella happy with her dolly in a purse!

My little walker Baby Z...taking more and more steps every day! She's so adorable! (Can you see the big goose-egg on her forehead? She decided to get out of the tub by herself last night. Oops...)

Ella and Max in chocolately-heaven bliss.


This afternoon while the little ones slept, Ella and I went out to try out the new chalk (bunny chalk!)

I drew a bunny, and Ella decided to go for a piggy-back ride on it for the pic!! (Or bunny-back ride?!?)

THEN, Mommy decided to chase Ella-Bells around the place. What FUN!!! I clicked a few pics too! I simple LOVE pics like this! You can see her BURSTING with smiles!!!!!!! :D





Thanks for the 'time' this weekend. It was amazing. :)

She's one. She went and turned a year old on me. I can't believe it! Simply crazy how fast a year can go...

AND she's walking. Today she took more than a couple steps. She has moved onto 'knowing' very well what's she's doing, and wants to walk everywhere!!! It started with this morning. I was in the kitchen, and she crawled towards me, stopped - stood UP, and walked the rest of the way to me! It was AMAZING!!! What a girl! ;)