Kids Are The Cutest When ...

It's no secret that I think my kids are cute. I only think that because they are ... cute, that is. The thing is that there is a time of day when my kids are always at their cutest. When the moon is in the sky, they are all tucked into their beds and this peaceful quiet calmness settles through out the house and dreams fill my little ones heads, that is when my kids are at their cutest. No creases in their brow, no frowns on their faces, no dinner smeared across their cheeks, just perfection.
A couple days ago I was skyping with my sister and the older kids were outside playing. Maddy was a little angry with me for making her stay inside but sadly she just can't do everything they can. She quickly got over it and cuddled up to her blanket at my feet. Kaitlyn and I had been chatting for a while when I realized Maddy had been super quiet. She's a pretty loud kid. I looked down and found her sleeping curled up at my feet like a dog with her little thumb in her mouth. SO cute. She must have been out cold because even when I moved her upstairs to her bed she just stretched out her legs and was dead to the world.

Hobby Time

I love taking pictures. I'm not saying i'm a great photographer, just that I really love looking at the world through a camera lens. To me it makes the world seem more beautiful, people more interesting and moments more precious. Everything is beautiful in it's own way and when looking through a camera lens the challenge is to find that rare beauty.
Ryan and I kind of a have a rule when it comes to the blog; every post should have at least one picture. Maybe it's because both of us are such visual people or we like to show off our super cute kids but we both feel like it makes the blog more appealing. It's pretty easy to add at least one picture since I pretty much follow my kids around with a camera and capture as many of these fleeting moments as I can. I can proudly say that 99% of the pictures on my blog are unedited, us in real life.
I do love playing in photoshop and seeing what I can do with my pictures but the truth be told, I don't have time and I really feel that if someone needs photoshop for all their pictures then they are doing something wrong.
With that being said I'd like to share with you a few of my 'edited' photo's along side the originals. Ryan says they all look fake, which is true but I still like the look and feel to HDR (high dynamic range) photography. So yes they look fake, but do they look cool?

Yay For The Beach

What do you do when your Canadian friends come for a visit!? You take them to the beach! It has been so busy these last few weeks for Ryan at work that we had to stick pretty close to home while the Banman's were visiting but it worked out to our advantage. We took them south to Punta Bulata where we literally had the entire resort to ourselves. It was so quiet and peaceful, the kids could be as loud and obnoxious as they liked and I didn't have to worry about them bugging other people. It was fantastic! They pretty much lived in the water! They would run, jump and splash in the pool playing around with their new blow up whales:

and then they would run down to the beach and play in the warm shallow waters collecting star fish and other sea creatures.

Brayden took the opportunity of not having to share the pool with strangers to master his flips into the water:

We went for walks along the beach and played with treasures we found. The last few months the weather has been really horrible and I guess they had some huge waves that came and took quite the toll on the beach. There were parts where the roots of the coconut trees were all exposed or the trees had fallen down. I know that erosion is a natural cycle but it's still shocking to see the damage the waves had caused since we had been there last in December. Ryan also scouted out a location for his explosives fire crackers and late one afternoon he and Jeff took off just the two of them and did their thing. Every once in a while we could hear a huge BOOM and we knew what they were doing. On our walks we saw some of the locals hanging out by their boats and some women who were crushing sea urchins and collecting the meat from inside the shells. We got massages and Ryan caught up on some of the sleep he'd missed that week. Juanita and I attempted snorkeling but I got scared off by all the sea weed we had to walk through because it was low tide. Sadly Juanita stepped on a big black sea urchin and got poked in the foot. OUCH! She was pretty dang tough though and went out again the next morning to explore.

It was such a great weekend. I think that everyone enjoyed themselves and we really tried to fit everything in that we could. Jeff even found time to take some pictures of us as a family! Thanks Jeff.

To see more pictures from our fun trip just click here!

The Sites

Yay! We have some friends here from Canada right now. Yippee for us. Yesterday while Ryan was sleeping I was able to take them to a few of the local sites and show them a little of what Bacolod has to offer. We went to The Ruins and walked through the beautiful destroyed mansion while the kids ran wild through all the open space and nice soft grass. It is just so pretty and peaceful out there.
After The Ruins we stopped by a Buddhist Temple and walked around the grounds looking at the lions, the shrines and the landscaping. The kids were so respectful after a pep talk about being quiet and not running around like children out of the wild. It was nice to walk around, they had a little garden area set up and even though it was right off a busy road it seemed to be a lot quieter.
I always enjoy seeing these beautiful places in Bacolod. It reminds me of the natural beauty I drive by everyday that now is just a 'normal' part of my life.

Sneaky Sneakiness

We were staying at a hotel the other day and we had this table outside so we decided to eat our dinner outside. Brayden had mentioned how he didn't really like his meat too much but he was told that he had to finish everything on his plate. I got up from the table for a minute to get something from the hotel room and on the way out pass Brayden heading in. I ask him what he's doing down from the table and he tells me that he's "looking for the garbage."
"Why?" I asked him. He simply replied it was because he just wanted to know where it was. I quickly sized him up and down and noticed that his left hand was lightly clenched into a fist so I asked him "What is in your hand Brayden?"
He opens up his palm and shows me the last bit of his hamburger patty and shrugs with a smile and says "OH! I forgot that was there" and heads back to the dinner table.

Did you ever do things like that when you were younger to not eat something you didn't like? I can remember my sister getting busted for trying to flush food down the toilet! Hahaha. Ryan once told me a story from his mission of an elderly blind lady who cooked them the nastiest fish he's ever tasted. He and his companion kept feeding it to the ladies cat until finally the cat puked it up!
It will be interesting to see how much more Brayden becomes with his dinner disposal as he gets older. As for Ryan and I, I guess we need to add dinner detectives to our resumes.

It's Officially Summer Vacation!

On Saturday the kids had their school concert to end the year. It was all about how they are proud to be Pinoy (Filipino). My kids were each born in Canada and hold a Canadian passport BUT they all have spent the majority of their lives in the Philippines so I guess they could kind of pass of Pinoy? I'm not too sure exactly how it all wrapped up together as far as costumes but Maddy was a lawyer, Sydney a ballerina and Brayden a boxer basketball player. Easy costumes for the first time ever at this school so I was pretty pumped.
It was fun. There were four different levels performing at the concert and we had kids in 3 of those 4 'grades' so it was pretty entertaining. I can remember Brayden's first year Christmas concert and out of the 8 different performances he was apart of 2 of them. Boring. We loved the few minutes he was up there but the rest of it was just painful. This year was a totally different experience. They were so cute up there. Both Sydney and Brayden rocked their moves and even Madison started to get into it shaking her hips and clapping her hands. I have to say ... SUCCESS!

Favorite Canadian Treat

I love Beaver Tails. Have you ever had them? It's a thin slab of fried bread smeared with toppings, traditionally, melted better and cinnamon sugar. YUM! This is one of my all time favorite treats. I can not go to Vancouver and not get one. It's pretty much the same thing as the elephant ears you get at Whoop Up Days in Lethbridge. Now these Beaver Tails stores sell them with all sorts of toppings, fruits, smoked salmon and cream cheese, sour cream and chives! But for me, it's always the classic. They call them Beaver Tails because they look just like a beaver tail, pretty self explanatory if you've ever seen a beaver.
So we're driving in the car and Brayden starts talking about the next time we go to Canada he will get a Beaver Tail. This is such a random thought but when it comes to Brayden, these thoughts just come to him. Last time we went home (July) we stopped in Vancouver for a week to spend time with my family. We went to Lonsdale Quay and in the little market I treated myself to a Beaver Tail. Brayden and Sydney both opted for a crepe, a decision they quickly regretted as I allowed each of them a small taste of my delicacy. Sadly they couldn't switch their choice as I had tried before they ordered to side with me and order Beaver Tails making it crystal clear that what they ordered is what they would eat. I don't know at what age, if any, children realize that mother knows best...
So back to the car: Brayden tells us next time we're in Canada he will get the Beaver Tail. My mouth starts watering as I join him in sweet remembrance. "Yes Brayd, those are so good!" Ryan pipes up saying that we should just make our own. I quickly agree "OH, YA!" thinking this is a fantastic idea and that we haven't had fried bread for months. Brayden gets a little excited and 100% serious says "yes, first we just need to go and find a beaver."
UM, whatever you say Brayden but if a real beaver's tail tastes that good I cannot wait to try the rest of it.

What Comes First; The Chicken or the Egg?

The kids and I were eating eggs for breakfast yesterday morning and chatting about all the random thoughts that fill a kids mind early in the morning. Brayden starts poking at his egg and asks if the yellow part is cheese. I tell him no and he continues to poke until he asks "well, what is it then?" Both he and Sydney look at me waiting to hear my answer.
"It's the chick." Sydney starts gagging. No joke. Gagging. I seriously didn't know to laugh or run and grab a bucket for her to spew into. Sydney still had half of her second egg to finish, Maddy and I were the only ones already finished. Brayden just continues eating away completely satisfied with my response. Sydney then is the one that starts poking at her egg. Her lip is curled up in disgust as she tries to swallow what was in her mouth.
I quickly try to save breakfast by explaining that it's just chicken, no different then what we ate for dinner last night ... just babies. She still pokes away not putting anything into her mouth. Finally she asks "can the chicken feel this?" as she's literally poking her egg with her fingers.
"No Sydney, it can't. It's just our food, it's not alive." (or is it?). She slowly becomes distracted by Brayden's next random thought and picks up her fork and finishes her breakfast. *sigh of relief* My guess is eggs won't be what we're eating today!

Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

I've heard that the weather in Lethbridge has turned at least for a day and provided everyone with a little bit of spring! Yay for sunshine and a little bit of melted snow.
I thought that in celebration of the turn of the weather (knock on wood) I would let you know what we've been doing with our nice weather. Although we didn't have loads of cold weather and snow we did get cooler weather and a sea's worth of rain. Thankfully our weather has turned just in time for summer vacation and we've been celebrating at the pool!

Brayden and Sydney have turned into great little swimmers and can swim a length of the pool on their own. Thankfully the pool is shallow enough for them to stand in most area's so when they do get tired we're not drowning. Maddy has also taken off in the water. She LOVES it. She just kicks after them in her water wings smiling away. She doesn't so much like having her head under the water but that could have been from the time she almost drowned at the beach. I'd share the story but it's 100% bad parenting and I'm in the processing of blocking it out of my memory. Still too sensitive. So we've been able to make it to the pool in our sub division 4 times this week and the kids are so happy about it. I'm happy about it because it's easy afternoons and they burn off energy so they eat all their dinners and head to bed without complaining.

Here's hoping the nicer weather sticks not only here in Bacolod but in Lethbridge as well!

I Love Them This Much

I love all my kids. I can't say for sure that I love them all equally because I'm not sure how someone judges volumes of love and it changes from day to day depending on attitudes and our moods but I'm pretty sure it averages out. I love them all uniquely though. They each offer me something different and something special. Brayden is my first. I had him all to myself for 18 months and I really got to know him in those 18 months. Sydney was my girl. How relieved I was that I had at least one little girl that I could dress up and paint her nails. Sydney is just that too ... she loves to be a princess but a princess who always looks like a ratty orphan. I get to go through all that girl stuff first with Sydney. Maddy is my baby. I have to treasure every moment of her fleeting toddler years and I think we keep her younger then she is in our minds.
It's easy to not compare Sydney and Brayden because one is a boy and the other a girl so of course they are different and boys and girls learn different things at different times. I've tried to compare Sydney and Madison but it's just so hard to remember what Sydney was like 3 years ago. I say to Ryan all the time that Madison is by far my hardest child but he always reminds me of how I teared up in the ultrasound when they told me how we were having another girl (and not tears of joy). *gulp* Sydney was a challenge too (stubborn and irrational) and Ryan reminds me of how tortured I was by her. How is it that I have seemingly blocked these memories out of my mind and only remember my chubby, dimple cheeked little comedian? The truth is that Madison isn't even that bad! She sleeps great, eats great and she's starting to understand logical consequences so I have been able to negotiate with her now. She's easy going and loves her little family so much. I know you shouldn't compare your children and I don't in terms of which is better. I do it because they are so different it's interesting to see which of my children excels in different areas. They truly are their own individuals.
I feel so spoiled by my kids. How did I get these little people that are just so amazing? and so cute? I thought I would leave you a little photo comparison of my two girls. Sydney on her second birthday (don't let the candle fool you) and Madison 1 week after her second birthday. I've always thought they looked so different but they do both have those big eyes, same eyebrows, similar noses and cute little smiles!

My Apple A Day

I love to run. For me it's a huge stress reliever. Time to myself where I can pound away the everyday worries into the pavement through my feet and forget about them. It doesn't really matter to me if it's inside on a treadmill or outside on the road, just as long as I can run. However; as much as I love to run, there is one thing that I can't stand ... I hate the sound of my feet hitting the ground and I really don't like to hear myself breathe, or panting some could call it. Hearing those two sounds makes me feel so much more tired then I really am and my run feels so difficult. Because of this I am not the type of person who can jump on a treadmill and run infront of big TV watching some awesome movie unless it's so loud that everyone around me is going deaf. I like to drown out the world. What saves me? Apple. I LOVE my apple products. Ryan and I are true Mac lovers with our laptops and iPhones, we can't imagine life without Apple in it. When I'm on that treadmill I put my headphones in and turn up my iPhone as loud as I need to and watch my wonderful reality smut TV like Brad Womack (this season's Bachelor ... who will he choose!?) or the Amazing Race. I turn up my music and let the sounds of the world around me disappear. When I run outside I use two different apps simultaneously that make my runs seem to go by so quickly and really push me. One is the Nike+ GPS. It's amazing. Every .5km it tells me how far i've gone and my current speed so I can make sure i'm still on target. It stores my runs on the GPS where I can later view them on a map and track my route and speeds throughout my run. The other app I use is an interval training app which tells me how hard to work on a scale of 1 thru 10 and for how many minutes. It's a different workout every run and it progressively gets more challenging as I go. Between the two apps I can track my progress, stay motivated and get a different run everyday.
I know you non-iPhone owners hate it when we iPhone lovers brag about our phones but man ... they really do everything! As disgustingly embarrassing as this realization was, even my kids love apple. Whatever gets us through those flights :S

Bang Bang

I'm not sure if anyone remembers this post where Ryan bought himself an airsoft gun. He had such dreams for the gun; destroying the dogs and cats that got into our trash, man bonding in the jungle while they shot at eachother and of course staring at the green laser pointing from the gun to it's target. Well I have to say that from the 6 times I saw him use that gun his dreams went unfullfilled so when he suddenly started talking about selling this gun for a new hand gun style airsoft gun I was a little shocked. Why does he want a new gun when he doesn't even use the one he already owns? Stupid Silly me, apparently it went so unused because it was too big. Of course! It makes sense? Yes, No? :S Men! I'll never understand so instead of asking him to help me understand I just did the old smile and nod trick. Well a few Saturdays ago Ryan wakes up to go to 'work' and hops on his motorbike and off he goes. He comes home a little while later sporting this:

Well, welcome to the family new airsoft gun. I hope you get used more then the one before you! One thing is for sure ... Ryan loves walking around the sub division with this beauty shoved in his pants searching for stray helpless animals.

SUMMER ... just have to rub it in

SO! I just got my first sunburn of the year yesterday. Ya, it's hot out. Hot like fire. HELLO SUMMER!! How I have missed that scorching heat, bright sun and afternoons at the pool.
Sorry. I just had to rub in it. I really hope that it thaws for you all in North America ... suckers :P

Happy Birthday Madison!

Yesterday Madison turned 2 years old. Yay. I wanted to something fun for her and the other kids without having a huge party and feeding tons of people. Maddy kind of freezes up when there are a lot of people or unfamiliar faces and the last thing I wanted to do was freak her out at her own party. We decided to go with some pizza and sushi for grub which was so easy. I also stuffed this Hello Kitty piñata so full that I burst it at the seam (oops) but you can never have too much candy, can you!? I was a little nervous about the whole beating of the kitty because Maddy just LOVES cats. By far her favorite animal. As you can see from the picture she was not impressed. She like the kitty but she did not want to hurt it. Thankfully once the candy started to spill out of it she figured out it wasn't so bad but she still didn't want to whack it. She opened her presents and seemed a little unimpressed at first with everything we got her until she opened a little doll stroller from the Jarmans. "WOW" she said and actually put her piñata candy down and started walking around pushing her little stuffed kitties around the house. We got pretty much the same amount of enthusiasm about the cake as we did with the presents. She wasn't too impressed with it. Or maybe she was but she was a little angry at me because I was forcing her to blow out the candles before I would let her take the little cat figurines off the cake. Once she even got a piece of cake she barely touched it. She just sat there playing with the little cat's that were on top of her cake.

I pretty much threw her a party for Brayden and Sydney to enjoy, or that's how it felt at the end of the night. It was fun though. The kids did love it. We played with glow sticks when the sun started going down which is alway a big hit around our house.

So I just wanted to finish by telling you all the wonderful things about Madison and why we love her so dang much:
Her facial expressions are almost always over the top
She performs for us when she knows we are watching her
She is always screaming "MOM" every minute so that I can have a play by play of her activities. She is not satisfied until I have acknowledged her and what is going on (kind of annoying when I'm trying to pee)
She loves us even though we are crazy
She has a blankie that she adores and she's the first of my kids to have chosen a blanket I made to be THE blankie
She loves to swim
She will never ever let herself be left behind. She does her very best to keep up with Brayden and Sydney
She has an intense love for animals ... intense
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADISON MOFFAT BEATTIE