aunties

these kids love their aunties!  just need to get more with aunt michelle.

canada day parade

application mailed!!

ok, i've been working on my permanent residency application for like two months now!  it's hard because it's SO detailed.  and the only reason (i believe) i could get denied or have it delayed is because of errors, so i want to be precise.  

the hard part is that i have to go into detail about our marriage and then list EVERY address i have lived at in the last ten years, plus all jobs - which is a lot of information.  i have to fill it out in a fillable pdf document online and then print right away - no saving it!  and of course i can only work on it when the kids are not with me.  several times i would get halfway through and then one would wake up and i'd have to close the document - lose all my work.

halfway through, i found out that i have to add zoe to the application because of a change in canadian law in 2009.  she is not by right a canadian citizen because mathias was not born in canada.  so i had to re-do the forms i had already filled out.  

anyhow, i was determined to get it done & mailed by the 20th and i did.  on thursday night, i did a final check of all the documents and melissa helped me:

here are the documents laid out in stacks on the table:

check out our mug shots!

final package!

now, we wait...

argh, matey!

well-loved toys

dominic has several plan city toy trucks, cars and a parking garage.  there is one black truck that is an automobile carrier.  he calls it 'mack' as in mack from the movie cars, even though they look nothing alike - probably because he doesn't have an actual mack.  he puts lightning on it and drives him to california and reenacts the scene where mack loses lightning.  he loves this truck so much that it has had to be repaired by opa several times (he's a whiz with the duct tape).  probably one of these days it will become real.

church camping trip

we spent one night camping with our church.  it was fun but a little crazy too.  here's our lovely campsite, complete with dirt pile and septic tank:

of course, the kids loved it.  here they are making the most of the dirt pile.

i was in the tent, when i heard shouts of "look at dominic! look at dominic!"  mathias recorded the whole thing with these pictures (click to enlarge):

check this kid out, what a goof - 

ok, is it just me, or do theo and dominic look like kids at a refugee camp?

here's lucas, looking cute in the dirt:

and theo looking even more like a refugee because he was crying about something:

there were several bunnies roaming the campground.  dominic said to me, "make it dead, mommy."  here is looking for it under the car.

then the bunny hunt began in earnest:

and dominic chased it into the woods but never caught it:

the kids slept great in the tent!

and if you looked away from the dirtpile there was a beautiful view of shannon falls.

sweet zoe

just some pictures of how sweet she is