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Walks with Kosmo

Our pup Kosmo is most patient with us when it comes to his walks. He knows the routine that has to happen, before he gets his daily walk — Owen and Brandon have dinner, play some, have their baths and then story-time in Mommy and Daddy’s bed (with Kosmo at the foot of the bed — waiting). But once the boys are tucked cozy in their beds, he knows it’s his time. One such summer night, Sean took the camera along to capture some moments of Kosmo’s walks…

That stare, that concentration, it must only mean Kosmo has spotted something — another dog, a bird, a child squealing.

Checking out whatever was in this spot moments before Kosmo.

I thoroughly enjoy my walks with Kosmo. It’s my quiet time, my thinking time, my time to let my mind forget the craziness of the day. The summer months are my favorite, the colors and smells and sounds of summer with the heat of the sun beating down.

Prairie Gardens

Another cool spot I discovered through my wonderful Alberta magazine was Prairie Gardens. It is this wonderful farm with u-pick gardens, a row of haunted houses, pirate’s digging for treasures, play areas and fire pits. I am not much of the camping sort, so Aunty Claudette and I thought that roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a fire pit would be pretty darn close to camping for the boys.

There was a pirate theme at the farm and Owen and Brandon embraced it! I mean swords and eye patches and arrrr, who wouldn’t?!

We started the adventure with trying out the motorized tractors. Owen and Brandon found driving into the hay-bales and crashing the most fun!

Then there was the train ride (don’t forget you pay for everything with your coins), we saw strawberry plants, pumpkins growing and then stopped in the apple orchard to try out the apples — picked right off the trees!

After that we walked over to treasure island, where we got to dig in the sand and using water to discover the treasures (treasures we got to keep too!)

On our way to lunch we spotted a lady painting faces. Owen and Brandon weren’t sure about paint on their faces, so we opted for the hand/arm instead.

It was finally time for lunch, our fire pit was going and we were ready to get our hot dogs cooking!

Don’t forget about the marshmallows too…

After lunch, Owen and Brandon found some badminton rackets and birdies near by and started to play.

It looked like so much fun Aunty Claudette and Mommy joined in.

We ended our trip listening to some live music.

After some short naps, we spent the evening lazying on the couch. Who’s tired? Me, me, me!

Sidewalk chalk

The sun is out, the weather is hot and the driveway in the evenings is in the shade, how else to pass the time but let your imagination go wild with sidewalk chalk. It’s so messy but so much fun and lasts until the next rain.

Owen and Brandon love to fill the driveway with their creations (Mom and Dad love getting in there too to draw). Owen is at the age now where his drawings need to be of something — is it going to be a dinosaurs, ninja or spaceship today?

This is the look I get when Mommy is being “too” silly.

Brandon just likes to scribble and make wonderful rainbows of color.

But those scribbles takes lots of thought and concentration to get just right.

Brothers

Okay so two boys, 16 months apart, is a handful but a handful of fun (most of the time). I am not that familiar with boy play, with shooting guns and wrestling and dragons and ninja’s, but I am working on it and getting better (at least I think I am). Some days I wonder what it would be like to have a little girl but then there are these moments and I wouldn’t wish for anything else.

Owen and Brandon wanted to watch TV, they grabbed their chairs and the conversation went something like this…

Owen – Brandon you wanna watch TV?
Brandon – Yeah wanna sit together?
Owen – You’re my brother right? My best friend right?
Brandon – Yeah we sit close right?
Owen – Yeah make our chairs touch so if the TV show gets scary you can hold my hand.
Brandon – Okay brother.

Mom calls Dad, Get the camera!

And we got the moment. I am tearing up just writing this!

Bubbles!

It was another warm day with energy to burn. I was hoping to get some of my flowers watered, pick some weeds – you know the fun stuff. Owen and Brandon were all too excited to get outside and play. I pulled out the bucket of outdoor toys and away we went!

The bubble machine is always a hit (remember the green bubbles??)

They tickle my fingers!

Catching bubbles is old school, swing away at them and see how many you can pop.

Let’s help the bubbles reach higher into the sky!

Now we’ve got a stick and a baseball glove…hummm this should get interesting!

So I got only a little of what I was hoping to get done outside, but really that is okay, playing in the bubbles was much more fun!

Grandparents Day

There is this little known place just east of Edmonton that is all about trains.

The Alberta Railroad Museum is a wonderful place tucked in amongst the trees and farmer fields. The first time I heard about it was from my Dad; he took my Grandpa one summer and they both thought it was an amazing place. This intrigued me as Owen and Brandon love trains, then at the beginning of summer a great magazine came with the newspaper one day. This magazine was filled with all these cool places to check out around Edmonton. The St Albert Farmer’s Market (which sadly we didn’t make it to this year), Prairie Gardens (we’ll chat about that in my next post)…so many places to discover right in your own backyard. Not to get off topic, but I have found that now that I have children, I am constantly on the hunt for places to see and things to do in and around Edmonton that are free or relatively inexpensive or offer a really unique experience. In my years before kids, I would have recycled that magazine in a heart beat, not giving it a second look – funny how kids have that way of helping you to re-focus on the little things, the small details, the important stuff. Getting back to the Railroad Museum….I researched the place and worked to find a day that we could go and when I checked out the website, one of the first things that caught my eye was, Grandparent’s Day. Well if that doesn’t make the decision, then I don’t know what could! How much more perfect would looking at trains be then if Grandpa and Grandma could be there too! Thankfully the day worked out for Grandpa S and Grandma K (Aunty Claudette came along too – she likes trains, don’t you know!).

There were so many train cars and you were able to walk through them and see how it would have been like to travel by train – a little cramped for us tall people.

Brandon checking out what it would be like to be a train conductor, complete with his Thomas the Train hat.

And Owen showing us the way through….

Grandpa explained to all of us how the mail was delivered by train, pretty amazing.

Brandon and Grandma K – where to next?!

Try explaining to a 3 and 4 yr old, this is what we used before computer’s….where’s the screen??

A little lunch break to recharge. Grandma and Grandpa’s plates look much more tasty.

Off to see more trains, really there were a ton of them to check out!

Now this is what it’s all about — All Aboard!

Then we all got to go on a real train ride (we all know Daddy was there, right, he was the one behind the camera).

That was one long wonderfully exciting day!

Little Helpers

Brandon is fascinated with workers – any person wearing a orange vest, hard hat, safety gloves or in a big machine is a worker. One afternoon I was going out to check on my flowers, my garden and just all that fun stuff. Brandon was ready to help, but first he needed his worker clothes.

Brandon worked away while I worked away at the garden and flowers. Brandon filled the wheelbarrow with weeds I had pulled, then rocks and wood pieces from under the deck. After the backyard was tended to, Brandon and I took a look at the front flowers. Brandon thought the snap dragons and lilies were so pretty, that we should pick them. So I cut a few and brought them inside. What a great idea!

Owen helped Daddy with the picture taking side of things!

Happy belated Birthday to Daddy

Happy, kind of belated, birthday to Daddy. I say it’s kind of belated because while we celebrated Daddy’s birthday at the beginning of August, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to put together a post about it…so you see it’s kind of belated.

Anyway, Daddy had a wonderful few birthday celebrations. In true Daddy fashion, there was no special plans made or big to do’s, just family hanging around. We had a birthday dinner with all the family the Saturday night, complete with Dairy Queen ice cream cake. We sang happy birthday, as Owen covered his ears because of the “noise” and Brandon just laughed.

Then on Daddy’s actual birthday, I baked a special cake for Dad and we did the birthday song all over again. The singing wasn’t so loud this time, Owen and Brandon just found us amusing.

The first garden

I am so proud of my little garden, it’s my first ever attempt and I am so proud of how well it grew. I think the extra rain we had this spring and summer helped it along.

My peas are HUGE, they grew past my stakes and netting (note for next year) and produced bowl after bowl of peas each week.

My broccoli plant produced a wonderful head of broccoli, unfortunately I have to admit that I left it to grow and it became a flower (note for next year).

My carrots are still growing and I should be able to pull them soon. My seasoned gardening grandma’s keep telling me, that the carrots are more of a fall veggie to enjoy. My three small rows of lettuce have already produced two weeks of yummy, tasty salads for me. The tomato plants are producing lots and lots of small red tomatoes. Owen and Brandon love picking the red ones off — but leaving the yellow and green ones — and then eating them right away.

And finally, my sunflowers have finally bloomed. I have watched them grow taller and taller and on my many walks with Kosmo I’ve seen everyone else with these wonderful yellow sunflowers. Finally I am the proud owner of beautiful yellow sunflowers!

This was so much fun, looking forward to improving next spring!

Brandon’s 3rd Birthday Shoot

With Brandon’s 3rd birthday coming up, I tried to get organized, plan ahead and get a picture of Brandon to use for his 3 year blog post (a little secret – normally the birthday picture is a frantic couple days before the birthday, setting up the studio and getting Owen or Brandon to cooperate and desperately hoping for ONE good one). I am really happy with what we got this year for Brandon. We spend a Saturday afternoon in St Albert with Aunty Claudette so graciously joining us – one adult to each child and then one person to shoot pictures. We first visited the Enjoy Centre, which was beautiful and captured a couple great shots of the boys looking very grown up.

Owen looking super grown up in his glasses.

Dinosaurs runners.

The one that made the cut (but you already knew that).

With his new high top sneakers (or as Brandon refers to them, his cowboy boots).

Then we drove for a bit and found the Grain Elevator Park. Now let me tell you, this is the coolest place. We got to walk through and check out a grain elevator, got to hear all about how they worked and then got to sit on tractors and check out farming equipment. All of this was right up Brandon’s alley! That night I asked Brandon what his favorite part of the day was….he said, sitting on the red tractor!

Owen trying out the red tractor…with Daddy there it make sure he steers it in the right direction.

How old are you turning Brandon?

A little Mom and Brandon time down the gravel path.

After the tractors and grain elevator fun, we ventured through the trails of St Albert. St Albert has great winding paths through mature trees and running along the river, great place to take pictures. Here is where we let the boys go and just be boys, be brothers.