Some News and Catching Up

In case you're wondering, I've waited a week to post again on purpose. Since some people only look at the top update on the page, I wanted to make sure a reasonable number of people got to see the last entry before it dropped down the page a little. That, and I'm lazy sometimes.

Not too much news in the Deal family for the past week. Lucas started up skiing last weekend, and last Tuesday, he also began a 6-week skating program. The latter is geared toward fairly new skaters so Lucas is actually one of the best skaters in the class, given all his hockey practice. It's a world of difference from last September when he could barely stay on his feet. He's probably not going to get a whole lot out of the class, but we're hoping he strengthens his fundamentals. Those two activities, plus his hockey, are probably all we'll have him do for the next couple of months. Come the spring, he's expressed interest in playing soccer and baseball so we'll probably sign him up for both of those sports as well. Anything to keep him active!

Oh, lest I forget. Lucas's latest obsession is the Nickelodeon TV show iCarly, which is on Netflix. He started watching it over the holidays, and I think he's watched almost 2 seasons of it so far. I'm not sure why he's so interested in a show about two teenage girls who have their own Web show, but who am I to judge. That said, Marilu and I noticed he really seemed to like a female guest star who was on one of the episodes. His first crush! :)

That's enough talk since I know you like to see pictures. Today's theme is Saunders Farm, a local farm that we brought Lucas to several times over the summer. I've posted pictures from there before so I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about. There are lots of fun things to do, including mazes, a splash pad, and my favorite, the jumping pillows. I've organized the best pictures from our 2013 visits below.

Lucas's favorite activity at Saunders Farm is panning for gold, or minerals, as the case may be. It's also the most expensive since it costs around $10 for a big bag of sand filled with said minerals, but he has a blast doing it, and he keeps all the minerals he finds (or as he calls them, gems), so it's hard to say no to that cute face. I should point out that I wore a bigger version of this shirt that day. It was hard to miss us.

Fun times at the splash pad.

Showing off a "gem" from a different visit. Same hat though.

Lucas and I on the jumping pillows. If you're wondering about the awkward stance, I think I had just landed a jump. You can tell since he's been launched in the air. There might be a video of this. I'll check, and if so, I'll post it in a separate entry.

Flying down the giant corrugated slide.

And finally, some photos from around the Farm with his Grampy George and Uncle Jared.

The videos I referenced earlier uploaded quicker than I expected so here they are for your viewing pleasure.

Growing Up on Christmas Eve

Since 2006, we've had a tradition of visiting Tracey and Andre's home on Christmas Eve for dinner and socializing. The only year we missed was 2008, when we traveled down to Florida to stay with my Dad for Christmas. Our friends Sheri and Adam have been another constant on Christmas Eve as well. Actually, since Sheri and Tracey go way back, the Christmas Eve tradition probably predates us, but I like to think it started in 2006.

2006: Buns in the Oven 

As fate would have it, on Christmas Eve 2006, Marilu, Tracey, and Sheri were all pregnant for the first time (with Lucas, Thierry, and Logan, respectively). We took the pictures below, not realizing at the time what kind of tradition THAT would turn into.

2007: New Arrivals 

In 2007, the boys made their debut appearance. 

These expressions are priceless. And no, I have no idea what they were looking at. Incidentally, the pajama shots lasted until this year, when they finally decided to hell with it, they were going to keep their regular clothes on. (As a casual writer, yes, it does pain me slightly that the last two sentences both ended in a preposition.)

2008: 1 Year Old 

If you recall, I said we weren't around in Ottawa for Christmas Eve that year. But through the magic of stealing pictures from a different event (New Year's Eve at Heidi's), I can kinda sorta keep the tradition going in 2008. Yeah, it's cheating a bit, but at least you get a good idea of their growth without missing a year. Just try to imagine them all sitting next to each other at the same time.

2009: 2 Years Old

The true tradition continues! This could also be called the "Thank God for Tracey" year since, as mentioned previously, we apparently couldn't be bothered to take any photos. The boys were 2 years old this year, and as you'll be able to tell, they were at that stage where they'd been photographed enough in their life that their patience for several photos on a couch was on the low end. I love the expressions below, particularly the fact that each of them has a "okay, I'm done with this" look at least once.

Fun fact: this was our first Christmas Eve at Tracey and Andre's new place in south Kanata, not too far from us. In 2006 and 2007, they lived out in the country in North Gower. It wasn't that far, but on dark winter nights, it felt about a hundred miles away so I'm glad they are now much closer.

2010: 3 Years Old

This Christmas Eve saw the addition of a new cast member: Etienne, Thierry's younger brother. The kids were a little more willing to pose for photos this time around, but actually getting all of them to stare at the camera was a near Herculean task. It probably didn't help that at least three of us were trying to take photos!

I have no idea what Lucas is up to in this photo.

2011: 4 Years Old

You may notice a different couch this year, but we're at the same house. Pictures were just moved from the family room to the living room. Or vice versa. As a part time real estate agent, I should probably remember which is which. Whatever the case, this has been the location for the last two years as well.

Two observations I just made while looking at these photos: one, Thierry and Etienne are wearing matching pajamas in 2010 and 2011. *cough*dorkyparents*cough* :) Second, Logan is wearing the same pajamas in 2011 that the Wonder Twins wore in 2010. I have nothing snarky to add. Just observin'.

2012: 5 Years Old

After going through the baby years, where the boys didn't know we were taking pictures, and then the toddler years, where they didn't want to sit still for a picture, we finally entered a new era: one in which they wanted to pose. And pose they did. (side note: good to see Thierry and Etienne broke the pajama curse)

I want to make it abundantly clear that Lucas is not doing what you think he is doing in this next picture. It just happens to be where his finger was resting at the time. Still, it does look damned funny.

2013: 6 Years Old

And that brings us to the present...or at least a couple of weeks ago. It may just be me, but I found the difference between the boys from 2012 and 2013 to be the most drastic change since 2006 and 2007. They just look so much older. Yeah, part of it is the fact that they aren't in pajamas, but our little first graders/future NHL stars just look so much more mature (physically, not mentally, as evidenced in the first picture). It's so hard to believe they are now six and not those little kids who could barely move around on their own a few short years ago.

2014: 7 Years Old

Rather than confuse the kids with where to look, I let Tracey take all the pictures this year (with her far superior camera), and then I just looted them all from her Flickr account. So without any further adieu, the 2015 Christmas Eve update of Lucas, Logan, Thierry, and Etienne.

The first two pictures are almost identical except Etienne has a better smile in the second one. However, I thought the other 3 kids looked better in the first one. So voila, you get both.

Can't take pictures without the kids getting a little wacky.

This was my favorite picture of the 3 older boys, but unfortunately, Etienne is distracted.

And one last crazy one.

I can't recall if I've ever posted other pictures from the Christmas Eve party, but here are a couple of others I liked from this year.

.

2015: 8 Years Old

Here's the 2015 installment of "The Boys on Christmas Eve." I've combined the best of my photos and ones I stole took directly from Tracey's Flickr page. Next year, I may refrain from taking any since you can tell the kids aren't sure which way to look in most of the photos, with some of them looking at mine and some looking at Tracey's. That said, the photos still look good.

Might as well get the "serious" ones out of the way first since they didn't stay serious for long.

And then chaos ensued.

Since it was a green Christmas, Tracey was able to get an ultra-rare picture of the kids playing in the backyard. Don't expect to see too many repeats of this picture in the future. Unless we all win the lottery and move south.

2016: 9 Years Old

This year marks my slowest update to the Christmas Eve pictures as it's now January 30, and my mom has asked me to post them at least once. Good to know my ability to post things late remains consistent from year to year.

As referenced in last year's update, this time around I let Tracey take all of the pictures since there was some confusion as to which camera the kids were looking at last year. The pictures were so-so this year, but let me be the first to state that this was through no fault of Tracey's. The kids were just unwilling to sit still and pose long enough to get pictures equivalent to years past. That said, I suggested that next year we will not allow them to open any Christmas Eve gifts until such time that they pose for a few good photos. Bribery and/or blackmail is always a useful bargaining tool with children so we'll see how that works out about 11 months from now.

So without any further adieu, here are the highlights from 2016.

Pajama time! I see this year Logan and Thierry are matching. It's always something with those kids.

So that's that. I really hope everyone enjoyed watching this year-by-year transformation of Lucas, Logan, and Thierry (and Etienne, eventually). It took much longer than I though to write this post, when you factor in tracking down all the photos, picking the best ones, and then commenting on them, but I have to admit this is already one of my favorite blog entries. It's really a neat thing for me to see just how much they've changed. Mostly for the better, I suppose. :)

Before I wrap this up, I want to once again thank the fabulous Tracey. Not only did she provide the setting for all of these photos (and many thanks to Andre for that as well), but this would not have been possible if not for her pictures. On top of all of that, her Christmas Eve dinners have been damned tasty!

For what it's worth, I intend to update this post annually as long as we keep getting invited over there for Christmas Eve. Or until the point where our kids really do give us the finger and tell us to shove it. Whichever comes first.

Puzzled

Earlier tonight, I had every intention of posting a chronological look at Christmas Eve with Lucas and his friends Thierry and Logan. However, while preparing to do it, I realized I couldn't find any pictures from 2006, which was when the kids were still in the bellies (yes, we took a picture of the three moms), or from 2009 (I have no idea if I lost that year or if we just didn't take any, which doesn't sound like us). As a result, I've spent the last couple of hours scouring my computer, to no avail. Tomorrow, I'm going to check my online storage, and if that doesn't turn up anything, I may take a look at the desktop PCs downstairs. Maybe something disappeared when I transferred the photos. Who knows?

In the meantime, some Lucas news. His first ski lessons of the season were this afternoon. He and Marilu actually spent the majority of the day at Mt Pakenham, skiing their hearts away (and tiring themselves out). Tomorrow is back to school, and it probably couldn't come at a better time since he's been driving us crazy. It doesn't help that he was cooped up in the house for several days last week due to the insanely cold weather.

Here's a few random photos from July to tide you over until I resolve the Christmas Eve conundrum.

First Post of 2014!

Sorry about the post-Christmas disappearance. For the first few days after Christmas, my free time was spent with one of my gifts, Assassin's Creed III on the Playstation 3. However, this whole week has been devoted to preparing for my Corporate Finance final, which is on Saturday morning. I promise I'll have more photos up this weekend.

Quick hockey update: Lucas's first "tournament" was on Dec 28. I use the quotations since it was technically a Fun Day. They didn't keep score, and it's all for fun, but they did play three games so it was tournament-ish. We've been harping on Lucas to keep both hands on his stick and to be more aggressive in going to the puck, and I'm happy to say there was definite improvement. He even scored three goals in the first game (we only saw 2, but he swears on the 3rd), so that was a nice surprise. I think it's nothing but practices for the next couple of months, and then in March, he might have up to three separate tournaments (um, Fun Days). So that ought to be a busy month. Unfortunately, we didn't get much in the way of pictures. The arena was pretty busy, and our cameras aren't that great at getting long distance action shots so you'll likely have to be satisfied with news of the events for the time being.

So that's that for now. I'll do everything I can to get a new update up by Saturday night. In the meantime, Tracey just contacted me a little bit ago to let me know her pictures from Christmas Eve are up. If you want to see more of how all 3 of us spent that night, check it out here. You'll have to scroll down a little ways, but you'll know it when you see a dinner party. :)

And lest I forget, Happy New Years!