Happy Anniversary

Hard to believe that on this day, four years ago, Greg and I were married. Time sure flies! Two and a half kids later...

We've really been blessed to have lived a fairly good life thus far. In our four years of marriage, and technically the years dating prior to that, we've managed to expand our family - first with a black lab named Raider in November 2004...

...then our first born, Isaiah Joseph, in November 2006.

Along came our second son, Braylon Miguel, in February 2008...

...and we're now expecting our third, TBA.

It's been a ride. And we've managed to live a pretty busy life, watching NFL games...

attending plenty of family functions, most often weddings as the extended family continues to grow...

...acquiring nephews and a niece, sharing in holidays with our kids, and taking some vacation time for just the two of us.

It's really been a busy four years!

So, here's to many more, Greg! I look forward to seeing what our future has in store!

Juliana Reese Herr & Sebastian Murataj

Congratulations to my brother and his wife, Leanne, on the safe arrival of their daughter, Baby Juliana Reese. It's been a few weeks now, but I hadn't had a chance to post a blog, so I'm making up for it today (while taking breaks to convince Isaiah it really is indeed nap time -- although, to his defense, there have been numerous distractions, including the machines prepping our driveway and the neighbour girls checking in to see if he can play... twice). We unfortunately weren't able to make it down to Orangeville to visit them in the hospital, but we squeezed in a visit (despite a pile of marking and feeling under the weather) on the weekend after she was born. I've only twice laid claim to an unknown gender, and I was right - I now have a niece!

Here I am stealing some quality girl time:

And Greg had a chance to hold her too:

The boys were both pretty taken with her too; they're really good brothers and are quite used to their cousins on Greg's side, so they were gentle and sweet with her... it just meant rough housing one another with daddy when they were allowed!

My mom and Greg drove down to visit that day as well, so here is Grandma Lina with her first grand-daughter... and then with all the grandkids!

So the new Herr family looks much like this: my brother James and sister-in-law Leanne, with their daughter Juliana and dog, Keelee. Funny, I'm surrounded by boys while my brother's family is made up of girls!

We stopped in to visit again on our way home from the cottage, and snapped a Herr cousin shot:

Anyhow, while I am posting this, I should also post a congratulations to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law for their new addition as well, since I was not updating my blog when they had their second son. And sadly I've no pictures of my new nephew Sebastian whatsoever, which will inspire me to capture a few in the next few days since it's pathetic we've caught none at all and he's now two months old. But here is my sister-in-law with her oldest boy, Mateo, riding the cars at the Turkeyfest:

Congratulations Stacey, Ermal and Mateo on your growing family as well - and welcome Sebastian to the family (I promise to not only steal some snaps off Facebook from your mommy's profile, but now that we've a new camera I'll be sure to get some for ourselves as well!).

Busy Bees

We've had ourselves a busy summer so far -- we took a day trip to the African Lion Safari and then the boys and I were off to the Herr cottage for a holiday. Unfortunately it was rainy and cold, not all that typical for the first week of July up north, but we survived and had ourselves as much fun as possible despite the rain that NEVER let up! But we had gorgeous weather for our Safari day...

Now of course our original plans got skewed when the drive shaft on my truck decided it wanted to go. Knock on wood, we've been lucky with our truck for the most part, considering it gets 200+ kms/day with me commuting to work. But with impeccable timing, we were out a vehicle with plans to go on this trip. Thankfully we were able to take my in-laws' vehicle, although it meant they didn't end up coming with us. So we picked up Greg from work at Toyota and off we went to the safari. The boys were super excited, Isaiah in particular, as for days we'd been counting down the sleeps until he got to see the animals. We went on the boat cruise first, to see the monkeys and the birds, before heading out on the safari tour. Here we are waiting for our bus:

The boys were captivated, despite the thick glass separating them from the animals, and well behaved, save for a few shrieks of excitement. Greg and I sat on opposite sides so that they could move around the bus depending on which side the best view was from.

Isaiah really enjoyed the lions and the monkeys, even though he claims his favourite was the elephants (which unfortunately he missed because he fell asleep).

The animals were most definitely used to the traffic - as they hardly noticed the cars moving around them and the people gawking at them. I'm glad we took the bus through, actually, as the baboons were notorious for riding 4 or 5 on top certain cars, and knowing our luck they would have chosen ours!

Anyhow, after we toured the different areas of the reserve, we had a picnic lunch and headed into the water park splash pad. It took a little convincing on both their parts to get wet, Braylon more so than Isaiah, but eventually they took to the wading pools, sprinklers and jets, and Isaiah even tried out the slide! I was worried he would want to head into the bigger part of the water park, as he tends to think he's much older (and in fact was tall enough), but he seemed content to play in the baby/toddler area. Here they are goofing around:

The boys then had a nap, so Greg and I caught the elephant show, for which Braylon saw the tail end. The elephants were all very talented - shooting hoops, painting, and doing gymnastic tricks. All in all, it was a great trip - and having never been to African Lion Safari, I was quite impressed myself.

Then the boys and I were off for our annual trip to the Herr cottage in Haliburton, a trek I've made solo with the boys before, though it's a long one. There never really is an ideal time to leave, as the boys aren't going to sleep comfortably in car seats were I to leave late at night, and I wasn't about to expect them to be well behaved for the 5.5 hour drive. So we did our best, and they weren't too bad.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, the forecast was not in the least bit appealing. It rained, and I mean rained, every single day, save for a few hours on Canada Day and then the day before we left. It was hard on the boys to be cooped up, especially in a cottage -- though had it been warmer, the black flies and mosquitoes might have eaten them alive outside anyhow. We did manage to get out for a full day of sunshine on the boat -- swimming and playing with the beach toys on the lake, touring before lunch, and back to the boat launch for an afternoon swim before heading back in to the cottage. So the boys got to exert some energy outside!

And so we've been home for only two days now -- which have passed equally fast with appointments on Tuesday and an eye exam this morning for me. The rest of the summer is by no means planned out, but I'm certain we'll find ourselves keeping just as busy! We'll be sure to keep you posted!

We're Back!

Well, the life of a full time English teacher full time mom full time commuter hasn't afforded me any time to maintain my blog, so first my apologies for my complete abandonment. But we're back in action... until I go back to work after this last leave, that is. But let's not think about that right now, I'm not even technically done this school year (although I see very little point in me having to come to work tomorrow besides the fact that I HAVE to). But the end is in sight...

So where to begin? There's ever so much to catch up on, so it's somewhat overwhelming to decide how to start off this blog. Well, maybe some of you noticed - those that weren't privy to this information before - that we're expecting our third son late August/early September due to the addition of my pregnancy countdown... though I suppose you'd have had to scroll down to the bottom to find that! Anyhow, we are indeed pregnant again, and we'll have 3 under 3 for a few months. All's well with this pregnancy - same old hat. I'm glad to be finishing work now thanks to timing, though - I can't imagine working until my due date as I did with the previous pregnancies. I don't know if it's because this one is so low or that this is the third and my body never returned to its natural 'state' between pregnancies so my muscles are stretched beyond recognition at this point, but this one is definitely feeling kind of uncomfortable. Anyhow, we're into the last trimester, so it's now a matter getting the boys into one room together and digging out the baby stuff from the basement again.

As for the other two boys - well four, if you count Greg and the dog - they're great. They've grown and changed so much since the last post, but as I'm typing at school I've no pictures to load at the moment to help you visualize the changes in them. So I'll save updating them in particular until I have a moment at home to do so.

Which may be awhile. We're headed to African Lion Safari on Saturday and then I'm off with the two little ones to Haliburton to relax at the cottage for a week or so. Some well deserved vacation for all of us. Other summer plans are finally doing our driveway - we bought the paving this week - and the boys are going to be taking swimming lessons in August as well. But otherwise, we're just going to likely have some 'us' time. Teaching really took that away from me with all the marking I had to do on the weekends.

So, I think I'm going to try to find a way to beat the heat (did I mention I teach in a school with no air conditioning?). I will catch you up on everything else at some point soon!

You'd Never Guess

That I was back to work. I've completely given up on blogging. These days I'm lucky to check Facebook weekly, that's how little time I have to myself. Yes, it's truly been back to life, back to reality. (So you'd never guess that I'm on March Break right now and, despite a pile of marking on my dining room table, I'm taking the opportunity to catch up on blogging!)

Anyhow, the worst part of being back to work is how little time I have with my boys. Where I spent all day every day with them before, I now see them for a mere handful of hours in the evening. Because I am still commuting to Woodstock, two hours of my day are wasted in my truck - we're still in debate about the move, which I'll save for later blog posts. And so we're not usually getting them until 4:30 or 5, at which point I've got dinner to make. Then it's usually clean-up, bath time, a little bit of play and story time, and off to bed for the entire family (as Greg, for those of you who don't know, is also working in Woodstock now). Such is our life. Not ideal, but it's our reality.

So I've definitely been counting down to March Break - a whole week at home with my boys. I admit jealousy when I heard my colleague's vacation plans, but in all honesty I was looking forward to my break because it meant being home, just relaxing. And fortunately thus far we've had nice weather to boot. It's been low-key so far, though we did take them into London Sunday because Isaiah's godparents, our friends Altin and Candice, wanted to take the boys to the Children's Museum. It was pretty cool to see how much more interactive and excited Isaiah was about the exhibits (despite their lack of change since I myself went as a child) from the last time he was there, which was maybe a year and a half ago.

And it's been different being home with them from seven weeks ago (yes, I've been at work nearly two months) because Braylon is now walking. And climbing. He is obsessed with motoring up the stairs, and hussles at lightening speed to return once he is removed. He absolutely hates to be told no, and he doesn't quite listen so well as Isaiah did at this age. Isaiah was interested in the stairs too (we have gates at the top of each set, but never had to install a gate at the bottom for Isaiah), but gave up far sooner than Braylon when we kept taking him off. Braylon, I think, is desperate for his own sense of independence, and so it'll take awhile... though I blocked the stairs off today with the coffee table because I was having to retrieve him every few minutes.

Isaiah, too is changing, though we don't notice daily. He is definitely improving in terms of speech; Greg and I are constantly looking at one another with a bewildered expression at half the things that come out of him. He is really quite anxious to be able to master some of the things that are out of his ability at the moment, but it is nice to see he doesn't get frustrated about it. And the two-year-old temper tantrums that were happening quite frequently before have started to subside (though one flared up last night when we were coming in from a bike ride because he wanted mommy to unbuckle him for the jogging stroller and, heaven forbid, daddy did). I'm looking forward to being home come summer, that's for sure.

At which point the monthly Rebelo cousin picture will be different as well. Greg's sister Stacey is due at the end of next month. And our family is growing on my side as well, as my brother and his wife Leanne are expecting their first come June. So the boys will have lots of little cousins to play with...

Anyhow, I wasn't quite fortunate in synchronizing nap time today, and expect Braylon will be up any moment. So, signing off for now... perhaps I'll manage another post later this week!