Daycare

Emily's locker

A view from the street.

Three weeks ago Emily started at daycare. She goes one day a week and is absolutely loving it! We went for a look-see the week before signing her up and I literally had to drag her out of there crying because she didn't want to leave. The first day she went I dropped her off at 9am and told the girls that if she got teary in the afternoon or something to let me know and I would come get her, I got no calls so I arrived at 4pm to pick her up and when she saw me coming she ran and hid from me........hmmm complex much???? Ever since then all I have to do is drive past and she starts calling out "play, play play....." and when we pull up to the front on her daycare days she gets so excited she tries to unstrap herself and cannot get out of the car and inside fast enough. Although it would be nice to at least feel a little bit missed at the end of the day I am very happy that she is enjoying herself so much. The staff all tell me that she has fitted in really well and is getting along nicely with all the other children and taking part in all the activities etc.

As we were leaving (or attempting to leave anyways) Emily ran off and started playing in the outside play area..........hmm can't tell why....

Out & About in Sudbury - Science North

Riley out the front entrance of Science North.

The view over the lake from the cafe at Science North where we had lunch.

A few weekends ago we decided to pay a visit to one of the regions big attractions; Science North. It is a multi level (approx 7 different levels I think) interactive hands on science centre for children and adults alike. There are exhibits such as exploring the deepest parts of the ocean and the kinds of creatures that live down there, a toddler treehouse play area, an area full of living insects from across the world, a butterfly gallery and a Lego room. There are areas where you can measure your fitness level and race a sprint against another person and have it timed and videoed in slow motion to watch in play back mode. We spent a few hours there and of course didn't get to see anywhere near all of it but both the kids had a ball and we will certainly head back again for more fun.

The kids exploring the deepest ocean in a submarine.

Exploring a cave...

Dress-ups. Riley was a bird (I think......)

Emily playing dress-ups. She was a lady bug.

Emily the Butterfly.

Riley in the butterfly gallery. This butterfly landed on him and stayed on his shoulder for most of the time we were in there.


Still there............

Ummm butterflies..............

A rather surprised looking astronaught Riley.

and astronaught Emily.

Entering the Lego room....... We all enjoyed the Lego room differently,

Emily built houses.....

Riley built something on the lego wall...........

and Daddy??? Well he just chilled!!

A Lego angel??

Our New House - Before the furniture

The day before the movers arrived we spent the day cleaning the house. Not the most exciting day for anyone especially the kids who were in an empty house with a small portable TV/DVD to keep them amused and of course they could not agree on what to watch........

Snack time in the soon to be dining room.

Riley presenting the dining room and the door to the back deck....

Riley presenting the lounge room (minus any lounge room furniture)

Half of the kitchen with the builder's carptenter doing some minor alterations. Seems they didn't leave a gap big enough for a standard oven so the bench top had to be trimmed so that the oven could fit.

The other half of the kitchen. Not as big as Oakville but still does us very nicely.

A very exciting pic of our front entrance, coat closet and laundry doors. Once I get motivated (and by motivated I mean my house is clean enough) I will take some pics with our furniture in.

Time in the Hatch unit

We were very fortunate that Hatch owns their own apartment here in Sudbury so we were able to stay there whilst we continued our search for a house and then whilst the house was being completed ready for us to move in. It had two bedrooms so Emily slept in with us and Riley had a room (which is usually set up as a bit of a home office) to himself and had a sofa bed to sleep on which was a novelty for a bit. The unit was fully furnished and equipped so all we really had to do was buy our own food etc. Sure beats staying in a hotel for a month or two!

Welcoming Daddy home from work.... It was such a novelty for the kids to welcome Daddy home each afternoon after having so many months of only seeing him on weekends.

I think someone thought Daddy had bought her a lil gift............but 'twas for Mummy LOL!!!

Making the most of the wet weather and trying out her raincoat and rain boots (not that they made much difference as she ended up sitting and then laying in the puddle anyways)

Jumping in the puddles! Who would have thought a lone puddle in an apartment complex car park would prove to be so much fun??

Taking a little break from the fun and sitting down...........

If you are looking at this thinking that it looks like Emily is drinking the water you would be right, EEEEEWWWW Riley was both fascinated and disgusted at the same time. The more I tried to stop her the more determined she was to drink....

Warming up in the bath after puddle jumping and enjoying a mess free ice-block at the same time!

After the puddle jumping and bath time ice-blocks it was time for a kids movie and some popcorn.

Baking cookies in the unit was a little more challenging seeing as how I didn't have any of my usual baking goodies and this was the biggest bowl I could find in the cupboards to use as a mixing bowl. I need not have worried as a good portion of the mixture ended up in a couple of certain kids' mouths.........all part of the fun of baking when you are little I think!

What you lookin at Mummy??

The big move

Riley was lucky enough to go for a short ride when the guys moved the truck out of our driveway and across the street.

Gosh I didn't even realise it has been so long since my last blog (almost as long as my last confession hahaha). We have made the big move from Oakville to Sudbury and after many months of looking we found ourselves a nice little house to rent. It is one that we looked at buying (back in our temporary insanity when we were considering purchasing due to the very limited and very crappy rentals). Turns out the builder couldn't sell it due to the current economy and remembered Brad mentioning to him that we were no longer interested in purchasing and would continue to search for a rental so he gave Brad a call and offered this house for rent. After some initial negotiating we reached an agreement and we moved in the first week of August. We are mostly unpacked but going from a very large 5 bedroom house down to a single story 3 bedroom house with 1/2 finished basement means we will most likely have boxes around for some time yet.

The kids seem to have adjusted quite well with this move. Thankfully Emily is still young enough not to really know what was happening although she did give the movers a mouthful for entering her room and touching her stuff (I think Riley will be in some big trouble in years to come if he dares to enter her room without permission!). At first she was waking quite a bit during the night and coming into our bed so a little unsettled with all the changes but now she seems to only come in once a night maybe every second night.

Riley 'supervising'.....always so helpful

Riley and the team. They really were so very patient with him and really made him feel like a part of the team.

What's Your News?

Earlier in the year Riley went along to an open audition for a children's program. On the day he spoke really well but was very shy and so as we left we thought that we would just chalk it up to experience and think nothing more of it. Thursday last week a lovely lady by the name of Sharon called to tell us that Riley had been cast in one episode of the show! He jumped for joy and screamed something at me which Sharon and I took as a sign that he would be slightly interested in giving this a go.

The program is called What's Your News? and is a kids show featuring real kids (not professional actors) and animated characters (mostly ants). The ants are the staff of a news program and report on such things as a game of hide-n-seek (which is Riley's episode). So for Riley's episode the story is that he and his friend Taya are playing hide-n-seek, the twist however is that they play it with a bear. One of them dresses up as a bear (in this case Riley) and goes and hides the other person tries to find them and if they cannot find them they shout "Where's the bear?" and the person hiding growls Grrrr. So day one Riley filmed scenes of him walking up the street and the driveway to Taya's house to play with her. They also filmed him sitting on the front porch with Taya explaining to Gi Ant how the game is played. Today his scene was inside the lounge room hiding behind a chair where Taya finds him.

I am so proud of my little star he started out a bit shy on the first day but the staff were all so great and used to working with kids that they had him relaxed in no time. His little co-star fell in love with him on the first day and nick-named him her hottie hot hottie! Brad and Angelina have nothing on these two.....although after a couple of days to think it through he decided that he would stick with the girlfriend he already has at school...........they are married aferall.........

Overall he had a great time and was kinda sad this morning when I told him that today was his last day. I think that I will keep my eye out for anything else that he can do over the summer as I know that this has been a great confidence booster and I can only imagine how stoked he is going to be when this airs in September. To quote Riley, best get your autographs now whilst they are still going cheap LOL!!

Running lines with Taya and Jason (aka Gi Ant) on the first day.

Getting 'wired' with his mic inside his suit.

Fixing the suit after having the mic put in.

Day Two. Look closely you can see Riley behind all that equipment.....


Riley between takes hanging out behind the chair that he had to jump out from behind. Check out all the guys and equipment around him that he had to ignore......now if only they all looked and sounded like me he would have had no problem ignoring them..... seriously though he did do really well at this.

The look of concentration, I am imagining he is going over his lines in his head............(his ONLY line for the day was GRRRRR teehee)

Now there is the cheeky Riley smile we all know and love.

Peeking out from behind the couch whilst Taya was saying her lines.....

Goofing around with Jason. If you look closely in the background on the left hand side of the screen you can see the head of Gi Ant............whose voice is done by Jason.

Action shot!!Riley and Emily in the back of the production truck! Emily is holding a little teddy bear that they gave to her and Riley got himself a box of 4 army trucks as a thank you at the end of the day too.