Lazy summer days...

 The holidays have come and gone and it's back to school and the usual hum-drum of every day life.  The holidays passed by surprisingly quickly for us.  Some moms have been thrilled at the idea of getting kids back to school and routines, while Jake & I could definitely have done with another few weeks off.  Our holiday was lazy and relaxing and just about perfect in every way - we ate too much and slept even more.  Jake had a break from his meds and it's been nice to see him enjoying food so much.  He even put on a little weight!

Jake got off to a good start yesterday - he is with the teacher he'd hoped to be placed with and had a great first day back.  The real work kicks in from today though, they'll be starting to tackle work and I'm sure he'll be full of grumbles when I fetch him later.  Homework sucks, to put it bluntly.  I know it's a fact of life and I guess all the hard work in the term makes the holidays all the more enjoyable, but still...  We are already looking forward to the Easter break!

Jake and I didn't actually spend too much time at home this holiday.  My cousin moved in to our house for a few days and we took advantage and moved temporarily into our beach house with Marius and his boys.  It was fantastic, but more about that later.

Jake's veggie patch was doing super well until we moved out.  Marius had helped us put up a shade cloth and it was all looking so promising...  Jake had the promise of butternuts and patty pans and more tomatoes than we'd know what to do with, but unfortunately, the wind has been awful until now and I don't think the plants were watered as much as they'd have liked.  Before we "moved out", Jake's first sunflower opened.  He was thrilled - we all love sunflowers and they hold special meaning to us because the ward my dad had his transplant done in, is called the Sunflower Ward.  There's obviously also the Sunflower Fund, which raises money for the bone marrow registry.  Jake decided that his first flower was for his Pa...

 Look at our gorgeous veggie patch and green garden!  A lot of the plants have come to their end now and the garden is coming up for a good clear out.  We have 5 baby watermelons still growing nicely, so the clear out has to wait a bit...

 Also before Christmas, I managed to take some new photos of Rylee for Rosie's gift.  She had been wanting some updated photos of him to put up and so it was the perfect gift.  He's such a little character though, with such cute facial expressions!  His hair has a definite auburn tinge and he's very mobile these days, crawling around all over the show.  He's also got a couple of teeth...

 Nini is so silly... 

 Huh?

 Eating leaves is funny business...

 This is one of the ones I printed for Rosie...

 I think this might've been the only picture where he actually looked at me...

 A serious moment...

 Auntie Sue... did you know how irritating you really are??

 Help me Nini... Please....

 WHAT??!  This stocking is empty!!

 We spent Christmas Eve with Marius' family.  Christmas takes on a whole different meaning when the kids aren't all that excited about waking up to open presents.  They actually opted to open their presents on Christmas Eve, something I've never done before and which felt very weird for me.  Makes Christmas morning a little flat.  Marius' sister, her boys and Marius' mom joined us.Trying to get our three to behave properly for a photo is just about impossible though - they're ridiculous...

 Nice try...

 The boys, especially Cameron, were thrilled to find a can of whipped cream for each of them under the tree.  This photo of Cameron cracks me up every time I look at it...

 And Jake tried to get as much in as he possibly could.  Poor Jake developed impetigo during the holidays too.  Disgusting, I know, but it is what it is.  It means that he didn't really want to be in any photos and my holiday photos are surprisingly few.  You can see it in the pic below - it started as a little pimple, that he scratched, obviously getting the bacteria into his blood and then it popped up in every open sore he had.  With the holidays, it got quite out of hand before we got a doctor's appointment and he needed 2 courses of antibiotics to clear it all up.  He's better now and there's thankfully no scarring...

YAY!  It's good to be back!  Promise to post more photos soon.  Hope you all had a great festive season - what did you do???  Wish you a happy 2015!

Love,

Sue XXX