almost vintage.

wee care pre school in 1986. i'm second from the left with the spatula in my hand. i dated the guy in the tie in high school, and the teacher with the super mullet was also a babysitter of mine. she now works at the grocery store in town and i see her several times a week when i'm out and about with my kids. she's a very sweet woman and i'm glad my kids are getting to know her, too!




my oldest brother ryan... why would they have them stand in front of the visitors sign? he's getting married in less than two weeks and he's making me go all the way to jamaica for it. life is rough.



my sister.



wiener roast at our farm with our close family friends. my two brothers and sister are in there with my surrogate dad and his son and daughter. i call them my surrogate family because i lived with them for the last two years of high school.



if there was one theme from my childhood it was terrible hair.
and homemade clothes. ok, two themes.

not exactly sure what christmas this is, but i'm sure it's one of the many legendary meals that my late grandma doris (my dad's mom) put together. on the left is my cousin who is a month older than me. we grew up living two miles apart and were usually in the same class, so it's pretty cool that his daughter and matthew are in pre-k together and that his son and anna are only two months apart. (he also has three other kids, the youngest are eight week old twins. what a guy.) oh ya, and that's me on the right with my other cousin in the middle.

also, in the background you can see my amma, the original anna elizabeth in the red shirt, and her husband, great grandpa leo, beside her.

eight sleeps until southern ontario.

eleven more until toronto.

twelve more until jamaica.

fourteen until teeing off in paradise. with a caddy.

so. very. very. excited.

and then only three months until our golf season.

no problem mon.

i've wanted to blog about this for a while, but i figured i would jinx it. but we've turned a corner, definitely.

these two?

they get along so well. it's been happening for a few months now, but sometime around christmas i remember realizing just how little conflict there was between them. not that they never got along, but there were always daily, sometimes hourly time outs between the two of them... the usual refusing to share, hitting (or biting if you are anna) or just simply not listening...

but now, i would say ninety five per cent of that baby/toddler stuff is gone.

this is by far the best stage the kids have ever been in. matthew has matured so much (for sure because of the pre-k program) and anna's giant personality is hilarious and she is possibly the happiest little creature on the face of the earth.

i hate it when people blog about how their life is sunshine and roses and their kids are perfect, but right now, these two are that good.
















i know everyone says their children are amazing and beautiful and the absolute best. but mine are, and are only getting better.

the kids had their first ever dentist appointment, and it went exactly how i thought it would. anna was whiny and shy and didn't let anyone look at her mouth and matthew was excited and cooperative and a very good patient.

i took them on different days because i didn't want anyone's negative energy souring anyone else's first dentist experience.

here's our girl - looking a little apprehensive.

before this, we had been bringing up the dentist for days. matthew knew right away what we were talking about, he actually explained it for us. and in the comfort of the dining room anna thought the dentist was a great idea. but when reality struck she just clammed up and played shy and refused to even make eye contact with the staff let alone have any of them poke around and look at her teeth no matter how fun and innocent we said it all was. on the other hand, those tools don't look very fun and innocent, do they?

here she is after her twenty minutes of pouting, crying, and yelling no thanks! over and over and over.

they gave her a sticker anyway.

she was willing to show the camera her teeth.

goof ball.

then it was matthew's turn and he was ready to go! she explained things and he nodded along, just taking it all in.

then she cleaned his teeth, and he sat still long enough for her to finish them all. not bad for this three year old.

he really enjoyed the process - but mostly because they started bribing him as soon as he walked through the door .... and if you hop up on this chair we can go for a little ride! and if you let me look in your mouth you can pick from the sticker box! and if you let the dentist look around with this mirror you can pick out a new toothbrush! ..... their sweetness and enthusiasm made me want to gag, but my little boy sure ate it up and he couldn't have been happier playing along.

overall, matthew and i need to keep doing whatever we're doing cause everything is great, mike just needs to floss more and anna needs to come back when she can pull herself together long enough for a nice, friendly stranger offering gifts can look in her mouth long enough to count her teeth.

most of the province is snowed in ... it's a nice excuse to stay home. these were taken yesterday afternoon after the initial shoveling took place. and then we had another twelve hours of blizzard conditions so everyone is completely buried once again.

max thinks there are worse ways to spend a sunday.




happy and enthusiastic to start digging out.


on the way to borrow a second shovel.




he made it this far and then got tired.


it was a long walk back the house. we left the shoveling for dad.

Jay's 2004 Announcement - watch more funny videos

from five years ago... the end makes me just cringe.

see those books? the non kid friendly ones on the middle shelf?

those books are the ones i keep beside my usual reading spot. they are basically my favourite all time books that i pick up and read a little excerpt from whenever the mood strikes. except for the giver up on top, i like that book, but it's not part of that official pile.

but see the artie lange book? i love that book. like, love love it. it's his autobiography and the first time i read it i laughed out loud every three seconds. it got to the point where i had to stop reading it with mike in the house because about every other page there is a story or a line sooooo good and soooooo funny that i would have to go find mike and tell him about it right then and there. and when i finished it for the first time, i flipped back to the front and started reading it again.

i'm a huge artie lange fan even if i don't listen to the stern show or particularly like his movies or madtv stuff. you just can't help but love the baby gorilla after you read his book, and his little life stories are so funny that picking the book up for even ten minutes is always worth it. so i was a little rattled when i heard he was taken to the hospital the other day... his issues with heroin and blow were not glossed over in his book - in fact he admits in the last chapter that all of his addictions (food, whiskey, h, coke) were raging in full force at the time of publishing (late 2008). he says he wanted to get better but just didn't know if it was possible. when he talks about his suicide attempt (back in the days when he was making madtv) he says surviving was more embarrassing than anything. he felt like he couldn't even do that right. he berated himself because he was such a wimp and chose pills and booze instead of something more definite.

and this was coming from a genuinly sweet guy, someone you couldn't help but root for. so, when i heard he went back to the hospital, i hoped (?) that it was for a (mere?) overdose and not a suicide attempt. but that wasn't the case, in fact he even upped the ante.

come on, artie, get better - you're too funny.