seven.

in december cooper turned seven.
i can't believe we are there already. we now have an almost 9 year old and a seven year old!!
i remember 2006 like it was yesterday.....not like it was seven years ago!

i love parties. love them. love planning them. love throwing them.
they are my jam.
and especially i would do anything for this little guy. he is funny and charming and such a nice kid that waits patiently all year for his birthday AND christmas you can't help but want to spoil him a little. give him a little extra because of all the waiting.
but this one was.....a lot.
this year we took him and twelve friends bowling. glow-in-the-dark, laser-light show, disco bowling.
holy smokes that was a busy afternoon.
i completely under-estimated it.
i think maybe next year we are going to take him away for his bday. somewhere hot and fun.
{and somewhere brighter - trying to get 14 kids to stop moving to take a photo in a dark place sucks!!}

i don't know if i can do another.

...

 

#gronickchristmas

as i sit here today - munching on a ham and cheese croissant watching the snow flakes fall and listening to the boys playing on the xbox - i am reflecting on our christmas this year and how it was NOTHING like how i had pictured it. this year i felt like we were in such a rush. other commitments came first and the real traditions of the holidays got pushed aside.
there was no baking.
there was no blogging.
there was no skating.
there were no gingerbread houses.
there was NO SANTA. {we never got to see him and get a photo. :( }

there were, however, snowstorms, work and colds/flu. lots of all three and they consumed all of our time. work took over our time. snow took away our visit with santa. the flu commanded it's presence on christmas day. we did still do some christmasey things this season but it was nothing like in years past.

i just hope we can navigate this new rhythm of our life, master the beat and dance our way through 2014 effortlessly.
together.

that's my resolution.
what's yours?

all the best in 2014 - HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

these are all photo's from instagram. are you on instagram? i'm @jengronick if you want to follow along on our adventures!!

sometimes you win some....

okay so today i am going to open up to you.
i have been struggling with my weight. for a long time. i know a lot of you have as well.
mine stems from being pregnant. i gained so much with my daughter then got pregnant with my son so quick i never got back and it just seemed to stick.

but wait...it started sooner than that...i guess i should go back to the beginning.....

growing up i was a ballerina. have i said that here?
and i not talking i just took lessons.
i took lessons EVERY DAY. 4 - 5 hours a day about.
and on saturdays.
i was committed. it was my life. it was all i knew.

the year i turned 10 {technically i was 9} i auditioned for the royal winnepeg ballet and the toronto national ballet summer schools. usually you audition for both, hoping you get into one.
i got into both. i got to choose.
i was the only one from my school to do so. actually i was the only one from my year to get in anywhere that summer.
but that really didn't matter.
i was still put at the back of the class because i wasn't pretty enough or perfect enough. little things that yes - 8, 9 and 10 years old's - notice and absorb.
i ended up choosing the royal winnepeg, went for the summer, was asked to stay for the three year boarding school program - i declined the offer to stay...i was only 10 at the time.....

i loved my time as a ballerina - loved it! - but i think this is where my sense of i'm-never-good-enough stems from. i know it's where. and that stinks.

no one talked about bullying back then. about being nice no matter what. those days ballerinas were tough.
they were mean.
i never felt like i fit in but it was my passion.
and the teachers were too. i was told many times at the age of 12 that i was more over-weight than the others and to fix it. i really wasn't. i was taller and had broader shoulders, that's about it.

this stuck with me. i have carried it for a long time.
i realize now this is why i am SO hard on myself. i strive soooo hard for perfection because i feel anything less is failure. i have yo-yo'd with my weight and self image for a while now, falling into all the stereo-typical pot holes - striving to be sooo skinny to fit in {because all my friends were shorter than me and typically smaller but 16, 17 year old don't clue into that}, being in a relationship and letting yourself go, being almost out of the relationship so you go to extreme's again, trying fad diets, being so happy with one's situation that who cares, being pregnant and liberated {maybe a little too much! ha!} then being so exhausted that you don't care. that's when i woke up.

i decided this summer - enough was enough.
i decided that 36 was going to be a shinnier version of me.
i decided i really didn't like that number staring back at me.
i realized that problem all along was me. my decisions. my choices. no one else was to blame.
i am so glad i realized all this!
that was 3 months and 14 pounds ago.

that's the best part....i have seen results.
{i now really wished i had taken a before and after photo.}

i feel better. i look better. the changes in my choices have been minimal but rewarding.
do-able, not challenging.
i also feel better about myself. i feel like i have found my balance.
merry christmas to me.

:)

discovered.

do you ever have one of those times where life takes over and you realize that maybe you haven't taken a photo of your life for about a week and a half? when you think - is there going to be a spread for project life this week or a big oops sign plastered in instead? that's what i thought.

then i looked in the iphone.....

phew.
got it covered.

{why do other people's iphone photo's look better than mine? gotta work on that!}

;)

Halloween 2013.

Halloween this year was wet, wet, wet. Half the decorations didn't happen because of this but of well. we started the week off by getting pumpkins from a local farm - Roland Cloutier. awesome place up frasinere. then we rounded off the week with pumpkin carving, a party at brownies, a carnival at school, one fallen trick-or-treater that never got to go out, our usual hunting party who always visits our house first, visits from 8 other little ghouls {slow this year} and one little jeni-fire long who happily split her treats 50/50 with her sick brother who slept through the whole thing.

hope you and your family had a fun and safe halloween!!!

now on to christmas.....

our week.

this week seemed to have flown by but yet it was jam packed with goodness.

i'm going to start talking about a week ago friday cause that's just how it is.
around these parts that day is known as Terry Fox day. We all help in finishing his dream and running to find a cure for cancer. and run these kids did! they had to go around and around the field collecting stamps along the way to track their progress. it was supposed to be a stamp a lap but then it became about how many stamps you could get in a lap and then it was just fun. they got sweaty and exhausted and had a grasp on the cause and that's all that matters! what a fun day and it was the first day that i have EVER been able to volunteer at my kids school and they were so excited about that.

last weekend tony had to work all weekend so the kids and me decided it was high time to go apple picking. after that day i will only ever go on week days thank you very much!

holy smokes there were a lot of people there!!! wowzers! we were planning to meet friends rom the city there but that never happened. they got caught in the traffic coming out and decided to head deeper into the country than where we were and since i don't have a cell phone...yes i know, just call me mrs. brady!...we missed hooking up with them there. the place was a zoo! since i don't get the montreal paper i was not privy to the fact that this was the big weekend for that particular ochard and they had been advertizing like gangbusters. after the THIRD tour bus showed up i started to clue in.
and then the sun came out - boy did it come out! it was unbelievably hot! like july hot.
after finally giving up waiting - and after the kids exhausted the fun the playground could offer -  we went and picked our apples.

it took all of 15 minutes. really?
thursday's after school now sound like a good idea to me......we left a little grumpy and miserable but we had our 20lbs of apples that no one is going to eat and we did get to stop by a favorite veggie stand on the way home so not all was lost...just look at those pumpkins!

then we had picture day on monday - which of course i forgot to take a picture of - and we were late so i drove them to school and took them in for some strange reason...which i never do....and was accosted by the other mother volunteers to help out. so i did. so fun!

i took time this week to work on our week in the life album as well which i will be sharing shortly. i am so excited that i got right down to it and completed the picture part all thanks to our new printer and the fact that i was trying out a new photo filter program that i have heard great things about, Rad Lab - free 14 day trial - and am hooked and hopefully i can get it.
loved how it lightened and sharpened the photo's with just a click.

also i am trying to make more of an effort for play dates. i remember going over to friends houses during the week and loving it. since i am home for right now {not for long i hope!} i have decided to embrace that. they both had a friend over last week and loved it...again void of any photo!! aarrgghh.

but...

i did download my camera and find these gems in there. these, my friends, are hidden treasures.

aydan took these and her explanation for it was - well this is an outside set so i had to take her pictures outside.
of course.

friday afternoon we went to target to go birthday party shopping and treat ourselves to a starbucks - that will put a smile on anyones face!

this weekend was full of swimming lessons {they are doing so well.}, running into friends at the pool, walks, bike rides, yard work, another birthday party {number 3 in our 6 rotation. two more this coming weekend and one more the following week....then who knows!}, groceries, friday night home movie - Castle in the Sky, so good!, new fish for the tank, a water hose fight between tony and me {yes we are twelve - i walked outside and all i heard was "WET T-SHIRT CONTEST!! and the next thing i knew i was soaked. then i got him good.}, he tried to instigate a tomato fight - a couple went whizzing by my head - but i didn't bite on that one. finally getting to painting the upstairs two-story stairwell - it's a two man job and we have to make one more pass at it but what an unbelievable difference! plus one of the best chicken chili's i have ever made...well the ONLY chicken chili i have ever made!
all in all a great week and an even better weekend to get me out of my friday morning funk.

oh and we are ready for halloween.....

and i am so glad my mom convinced me to plant dahlia's - we have vases of these all over the house!

favorite quotes of the week:

"what are little boys made of? trash packs, skylanders and video games. that's what little boys are made of." ~aydan

"me and my kids, we are going to chase rainbows when we see them." ~cooper after seeing a rainbow in the sky last night on the way to aydan's irish dance.

*********

Also i came across this post by one of my favorite bloggers, Ashley Ann, and i think i am going to play along. It's called Embrace the Camera and it's to get you, whether you are a mom or not, out from behind the camera. monday's prompt was Smiles and tuesday's was Making Memories and today's is Everyday Moment.
i will post mine here throughout this week.
{i will be using my big camera and not the iphone as i don't have my own and will want weekday shots.}

are you going to play along?
are you guilty of being behind the camera too much?