Life with Twins after tragedy

It has been many years since my last post.  Unfortunately, due to my husbands sickness the thought of maintaining a blog seemed impossible.  In May 2018, Wallace lost his battle with cancer and we have been moving through the past year while trying to grieve and incorporate new traditions to fill the empty void we now have in our lives.

 We are incredibly grateful to our dear friend Suzy from Images Studios for these last set of family photos in our home prior to Wallace's death.

So what do you do after tragedy hits your family?  We have lost both a Grandfather and father in the time span of 6 months.  With no male influence remaining what does one do?  After a bunch of time in a depressive fog, I realized I had to fill the role of Mom and Dad now to 2 little boys while supporting a newly graduated University student trying to make it on her own in a city 3 hours away.  Am I crazy??  Yes, I am.  This task is impossible and I am so grateful to all those people to jumped in to help - It really does take a village!  Over the next few days I will take you through what we did to help move on over this year.

Back to school means back to hockey

Have you ever wondered about those crazy hockey parents???  My 9 year old has hockey conditioning skates for 5 hours minimum a week in the month of September leading up to the evaluation skates the last weekend of the month.

 Holy crap - what 9 year old needs that much conditioning???  Lets just throw them on the ice, see what they do, split them into even teams and get on with it.  Our metropolis is not running the NHL - unless to talk to some hockey moms out there (cause that's where their kid is heading).  This is insane and what is more insane is skate times from 8 - 9 pm for elementary aged children!!  Have these parents lost their minds??  I have to have the minions tucked in by 8 or all hell will break loose in our house.

I let the boys (yes both of them) join hockey for the exercise and socialization.  Now while one hated every second of it, the other loved it and excelled.  We are starting our 5th year of the Canadian past time and he has moved up to Atom level.  Everyone is NHL now people.  Holy crap!!  The bad part is he wants to be on a team that wins so badly (losing sucks mom, he says) and we do not have the craziness to install an outdoor rink in our yard so that he can hit the ice at 6am each day before school in the winter - True story, people do that and it doesn't even get light out here until 8am.

Is this what we are to teach the kids??  That they are just suppose to practice and practice to death and then they will get the big payday.  How many kids actually make it?  Really???  (I shall have to google)  Commercials all say "for the love of the game"  Do these kids really love it that much or are we force feeding them?

Liam so far loves playing and he can be a little slacker on the ice and he can also be a little dirty player.  That's ok for me as long as he doesn't lose the love.  Here he is super excited to get back on the ice.  I know he is excited because he is actually pulling his own bag.

Kim - super (not crazy) hockey mom

Back to school means back to hockey

Have you ever wondered about those crazy hockey parents???  My 9 year old has hockey conditioning skates for 5 hours minimum a week in the month of September leading up to the evaluation skates the last weekend of the month.

 Holy crap - what 9 year old needs that much conditioning???  Lets just throw them on the ice, see what they do, split them into even teams and get on with it.  Our metropolis is not running the NHL - unless to talk to some hockey moms out there (cause that's where their kid is heading).  This is insane and what is more insane is skate times from 8 - 9 pm for elementary aged children!!  Have these parents lost their minds??  I have to have the minions tucked in by 8 or all hell will break loose in our house.

I let the boys (yes both of them) join hockey for the exercise and socialization.  Now while one hated every second of it, the other loved it and excelled.  We are starting our 5th year of the Canadian past time and he has moved up to Atom level.  Everyone is NHL now people.  Holy crap!!  The bad part is he wants to be on a team that wins so badly (losing sucks mom, he says) and we do not have the craziness to install an outdoor rink in our yard so that he can hit the ice at 6am each day before school in the winter - True story, people do that and it doesn't even get light out here until 8am.

Is this what we are to teach the kids??  That they are just suppose to practice and practice to death and then they will get the big payday.  How many kids actually make it?  Really???  (I shall have to google)  Commercials all say "for the love of the game"  Do these kids really love it that much or are we force feeding them?

Liam so far loves playing and he can be a little slacker on the ice and he can also be a little dirty player.  That's ok for me as long as he doesn't lose the love.  Here he is super excited to get back on the ice.  I know he is excited because he is actually pulling his own bag.

Kim - super (not crazy) hockey mom

Summer where did you go?

I can't believe we are already at the end of August.  Another summer has gone by so quickly.  The boys are getting a little too used to the lazy mornings watching their favorite YouTube videos while laying on the couch.  I snapped this picture as I was leaving for work. What a cruel reality next week will be when they start back to school and have to be dressed, teeth brushed and fed by this time. Should be interesting.

Snippets of summer

Summer has gone way too fast.  As well as our adventure getaway to Jasper we have managed to spend some time at the beach.  The boys newest thing.....skim-boarding.  This is a fun activity that keeps them running along the shore trying to balance on the board in shallow water.  Can you say yay! I don't have to worry about them trying to go deep into the water, they are running back and forth along shore in front of me where I can sit and watch them wipe out.  Check it out!

A big thank you to the Giles family who introduced us to this activity during our weekend getaway to Winnipeg.  

Birthday Party Fun!

For those who know me, know that I love planning parties for the kids.  This includes any holiday where I can get my crafty on for them in the form of treats.  Check out the boys 9th birthday which was supposed to be an outdoor movie night but due to pouring rain was reconfigured to be in the house.

Using pallets to make a nice low to the ground table.  We used a bunch of throw pillows to use as seating.  Even with the rain the kids loved it.

To go with the theme of movie night we created cupcakes using mini marshmallows to top.  I snipped the tops of the marshmallows with clean scissors to create the popcorn look and watered down yellow food gel for the butter look painted on top.

Birthdays are not complete without balloons.  This is my favorite supplier for balloons and other party supplies: http://shopsweetlulu.com/

I wish I had been more up to date with the blog because the past few years of birthdays have been fantastic!  I promise to be better in the future.

Family adventure getaway

Recently we took a mini vacation to Jasper for a little adventure for the boys. Let's just say even though they are twins, the boys are completely different.  While Liam was a wild man on the river whitewater rafting. Aaron was hanging on for dear life.  The same for horseback riding.  Even with the differences they both had a dear fondness for the Miette Hot Springs.

Our guide took the time to teach each boy how to steer the raft.  Liam got much joy from making us all paddle (LOTS) while Aaron had one side of the raft paddle forward and the other paddle backwards which resulted in the raft spinning.  

We had only been to Jasper once before and only spent the night so the boys were excited to boogie around downtown.

Aaron really does hate doing physical things so while Dad and Liam were hiking, Aaron hung out with Mom by the Maligne Lake docks just relaxing.

The favorite spot even though I had to reinforce numerous times that the Hot Springs were NOT swimming pools.  They are "Soaking" pools.  I should also mention that our Japanese exchange student was also part of the trip.  We love showing our students parts of Canada that they would never see ordinarily. 

Stay tuned for tomorrow where I will showcase what happens when my children decide it would be fun to make fondant - RED FONDANT.....All over the kitchen.....Seriously. It happened and their sister was the leader.