6!

It really is amazing how time flies.  Can't believe Tobin is six already!  We had a party on his birthday at home, then had a free-for-all at the tube park on the hill.  It was. INSANE!

 Cake #1

 

These guys were lapping me and Nick in the Tube park.  As soon as they had their tubes they disappeared...until the 'call to cake' was announced.  Tobin, Teagan, Fisher and Thomas.

 

Nick just about to disappear on me.  He hit the ground running as soon as we stopped.  I would gather the tubes, look up and think, 'now where the hell is he?', only to spot him halfway up the magic carpet before I even got to the bottom of it.  Keen is an understatement.

Cake #2.  Here's a good idea: sugar up 8 six year olds and then turn them loose in a foam pit.

Yeah, bruises, tears.

Some pre/post cake carbo loading with Justin Bieber.

And you, littlest Gill.

I swear his head swivelled right around on his neck just after this photo was taken.

 Tallest to smallest

With Grampa

a photo essay on remote control cars

 Unbelievably, the remote control cars the boys got for Christmas are still operating.  However, not content with doing sweet burnouts and taking SICK! jumps they started coming up with even greater challenges for these little miracles of chinese mass manufacturing.

Yeah, dropping in off a sick pillow line thanks to King Ottakars Sceptre!

back it up yo!  No problem for Xang Hi Corporation!

Testin' out that plastic shock and ball-point pen spring suspension system!

Where did you go Little Guang Xi Lau?

Oh, hello there, are you stuck on a scarf?

Christmas and the New Year!

 Christmas this year started with the second annual Christmas eve potluck at our house.  Someone suggested this should become a tradition and I hope it does!

The boys were completely wasted and hysterical at the end of it.  Tobin ended the night weeping in bed that Santa wasn't coming and that what he really wanted was a remote control car and not an ipod but that he asked for an ipod and Christmas was probably going to be ruined.

Luckily Santa is an all-knowing and benevolent deity (plus there's no goddamned way I'm going to buy an ipod for a five year old...)

 books instead

lotta excitement in the AM!

the new remote control cars were immediately put to use as four-wheeled wrecking-balls of gingerbread deliciousness.

then we shot down to Kelowna to spend the rest of the day at Grampa Allan's with C and K plus the boys from Salmon Arm.  It was more raving, chocolate fuelled hysteria.

The boys were awed by magic!!

Nick's is kitted out as the magician's assitant, replete with wand and my grandfather's fedora

Coen: "what the dag?  It was a plastic egg a minute ago!"
Tobin: "oh great, now dad's going to make us clean this up..."
Nick: "gguuuuuuuhhhhhhh sooooo tirrrreeeeddddd"

did I mention the raving chocolate fuelled hysteria?*

*I was actually turning the treadmill down in the video, not up.  Up was their doing.  For real.

Just testing to see if I can find a way around having to pay for more storage for photos on the blog.  We've maxed out our free storage for photos, so we either can it, pay up for storage, or I sign in as Ann-Marie and post from her account!  Last option seems best...  We'll see.  In the meantime, here's a picture of one of our hens enjoying their nice, heated, weatherproof coop and run. 
Lay on, hens.  Lay on.

I'm working late tonight, and just got this note:

"Happy birthday dad"
Love nick

Thanks Nick!  For the uh... intergalactic..sea turd... I think?

November Randoms

A few randoms from the past few weeks:

Tobin is better than me at maintaining a smile when the photographer is taking 100 photos...

It snowed...

 ...and this is what they spent the rest of the day doing.

 Whenever I bring a new hat home it seems to disappear into the boys lair... which in this case was probably a good thing

FIRE TRUCK RIDE!!!

Yeah, I thought it was pretty exciting.  Or as Nick would say 'tesighting'.

Tobin's class took part in a drawing contest put on by the local fire department.  The topic was to draw all the fire exits in your house and what you would do in a fire.

Said drawing:

Arrows indicate fire exits, figure crawling along the floor is a human escaping the fire.  Structure to the right of the house is the muster station. Revised: I realized that he drew the raised garden beds, and the chicken coop, partially obscuring the tree which was the muster station!  Pretty awesome eh!

And he won the contest!!  So today, he and another little girl from grade 1 were picked up from their school, in front of all their chums, by Revelstokes biggest fire engine.  They went for a tour of the town, passing by their houses and their parents work, honking horns and siren-ing all over town.  Tobin was pumped.  A little shy about it all, but pumped.

 

Then they went back to the fire hall and had a first class tour, sitting in all the fire trucks, climbing the tower, eating pizza with the firefighters.  Awesome.

There they go!

And this afternoon he drew this picture to thank the fire department