Eviction of unpaying tenant(s)

Rewind to Friday, I was navigating the short 6am walk from the front door to the garage completely in the dark and completely from memory. This morning, with an accelerated heartrate, I made the short trek with lights a blazin'. Thank goodness the passage was uneventful. What changed?
I found out that the six of us (2 adults, 2 kids and 2 furbabies) are not the only tenants of our home. It all started in the summer when our new neighbours decided to blaze a trail through the wild undergrowth separating our 2 houses and build a walkway.
The stonework is beautiful and it looks great. Then on Sunday the dog disappeared for a good 10 minutes in the scrub on our side of the great divide. Upon closer inspection I found enormous (well I am exaggerating a tad) holes in the concrete under our front porch. The dog was going nuts for another 10 minutes until I smelled an altogether unwanted yet familiar odor. I grabbed the kids and ran. We all managed to come out of this event unscathed and odorless. Even the dog.
Not sure why I am upset because in hindsight I think Pepe has lived there for quite a few years. I remember on my first mat leave 4 years ago I saw a little striped monster venturing into the neighbours garbage. If the recent development of a paved walk had not come to fruition I probably would have been happily ignorant of our house guest for another couple of years.
What to do now? Our arsenal contains a bright overhead light (these critters are nocturnal and wouldn't appreciate new lighting installed by their landlords), used cat litter (I know ewww), ammonia etc.
We haven't done anything yet as hubby is still strategizing. In the meantime I am off to buy copious amounts of tomato juice just in case the canine wants to make anymore friendly overtures.

Bowling with Babes

Not sure where this idea came from but I thought it would be an adventure to take the family bowling. Not just everyday run-of-the-mill bowling but of course "Cosmic bowling"! (Essentially just glow in the dark bowling with loud top 40 music and lots of flashing lights.) My son embraced his inner Fred Flintstone and took to the game immediately. So much so that he didn't really appreciate Mom and Dad breaking his stride by taking their turns. I was afraid he was going to get a hernia because he insisted on lifting the balls himself.

He also sported some Bieber breakdancin' moves in the bowling alley in his cool rental shoes.

Than again some more moves in the party area...

Much to my surprise our 23 month old also enjoyed picking out the balls and pushing them down the kiddie ramp. Although her favourite part was the glow bracelets I gave them (such a girl)

Mom to a JKer!

So the day finally arrived... The day when pregnant or comforting my gassy little infant seemed eons away. It has been really eye opening to me how time has virtually gone on fast forward upon returning to work after my first mat leave.
Here I am...a mommy of a junior kindergartener. What!?!
I shouldn't really complain because being a February baby, he just missed being sent to JK last September. It seemed to go ok and he seems to really like his new teacher. He wasn't too keen for daddy to leave upon drop off but the teacher quickly got him interested in the cars.
When hubby went to pick him up he proudly showed him a tour of his new stompin' (learning) grounds.

Chi-town!

Chicago!
Thanks to awesome Grandparents hubby and I managed to fly away for 4 days to enjoy Chi-town. It was great to reconnect (and not have any little people interrupting our every conversation)!
The bike tours along the waterfront were awesome. I was also surprised to have enjoyed the architectural boat tour. It was really interesting and the weather was great.
The deep dish pizza was well worth the wait but it was definetly hard to move after. The Cubs game was a great party - I have never had so much fun at a game before!
The best part, of course, was the welcoming hugs and excited smiles of our babies when we got home:)

Millions of peaches....peaches for me!

We took four kids on little sleep to the Winona Peach festival on Sunday and I'm the only one that had a nap after the adventure!
Despite the exhaustion created by our hot hike and outing , it is super cute to see how excited 4 year olds get to go the midway rides (our son has a cousin that is the same age).*

At first they (and their Grandma) seemed apprehensive to go on the "flying dragons" but after a few spins around they were old pros. After that there was no stopping them (except for the fact they were too tall for the bouncy castles!?)

*Note - upon first arriving at the festival, they were also equally enthused by the port-a-potties.

The Circle of Life Lesson

This weekend we had the opportunity to go to our first outdoor pig roast party (my uncle is turning the big F-word). There were about a dozen kids at this soiree ranging in ages of 2 - 9.
Most of the kids took one look at the roasting pig, proclaimed loud "EEWww gross - I'm not eating that" and hightailed it to other areas of the backyard party to scarf down their pepperoni pizza.
My son, however, much to the delight of the butcher, was fascinated with the pig. "Look mommy I can see the eye". "Look mommy I can see the teeth" It was also the first time he really fully connected the fact that the meat on his plate doesn't come from meat trees.

We just spent another week up at the cottage with the kids and quite frankly I am exhausted. I feel kind of like I just spent a week at a fat camp with all of the activities (but with copius amounts of food and beer).
My 4 year old has so much energy I can barely keep up. He always wanted to be "doing" something - and that did not include sitting his butt down with a sippy cup on a muskoka chair.
The good news is that he has come a long way from last year when he pouted and was upset for me putting him into the lake. Now I found myself being hyper vigilant about making sure he wasn't taking an unauthorized dip into said lake.
My 22 month old apparently likes to pretend at being a future femme fatale and you don't realize how much she can secretly do until you turn your back on her. Than she is scaling ladders and swinging on swings. Hmmmm...gonna have to watch out with this one.
But for now it's back to reality and the daily grind. At least I get to sit down at the office (minus the beer of course)!