Dinner Table

When Rob and I were planning our family I always thought of us as having 2 kids. I could picture the dinner table in my mind, I even knew we would have a boy and a girl (or so I willed the universe to get it). So when I had such a hard time adjusting to parenthood after Jax it was sad to me to think that we may just stop at one. I always had this feeling like our dinner table wasn’t filled yet. As time went on and we decided to have another baby I could see that table again in my mind. And this past week our table is as it always should be. FULL

That’s right little miss lovely is now out of the highchair and into the boaster! We are soo excited and my vision is complete as is our dinner table!!

2012

Happy New Year All!! I am sooo excited for 2012 what an exciting thing the new year is, I love fresh starts and like Oprah said Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.

At Christmas Jax got an awesome book from Aunt Dawn and family, it has shape the Gundry Family New Years Resolution..

The book is called Have You Filled A Bucket Today?  (A Guide to Daily Happiness For Kids) by Carol McCloud.

The idea of the book is that we all carry invisible buckets and when our bucket is full we feel awesome, happy well just GREAT! When your bucket is empty you feel sad and lonely and well not great.  They encourage kids to be bucket fillers, a bucket filler is someone who says and does nice things to/for people. When you fill someone else bucket you also fill your own. Now there are also bucket dippers they are sad people who's buckets are empty and think they can dip into others buckets to fill theirs.. but this doesn't work it only makes the other person feel bad or sad.  So it encourages everyone to be bucket fillers, it suggest ways kids can fill other peoples buckets and how to set a goal each day to fill someones bucket.
So the Gundry are gonna spend 2012 trying to be

We are gonna spend January starting at home with small things for friends and family and ramp it up over the year.. excited to see what we can do!!

Happy New Year to you all and may your buckets over flow, and may you fill buckets all day long!

2012 is gonna be an awesome year!!!

bacon bacon bacon

Well the Gundry's had an amazing Christmas!! We saw all our family, we got spoiled, we had yummy food, we made a killer turkey (including my famous homemade gravy), we had countless drinks and we are TIRED!

This story I am posting A.Cuss it is funny but mostly cuss I want to remember it in years to come and know the wording that made me spit coffee out my nose on Boxing day..

We got up on Boxing day at home, the kids were tired hell we were tired, but we had 2 Christmas at our house to host that day so we were bookin it to get stuff done. Rob had gotten up earlier and made fried eggs and bacon. This is a special treat we don't normally have bacon in the house and rarely do we get to have a nice breakfast even on weekends.
Rob asked Toad if he would like to have a bacon sandwich for breakfast, he was busy playing with his new toys but said yes so I made him some toast and put the bacon on it.
I called him to the table and when he got there he was upset. Toad is going through a stage of HUGE attitude (We are working on it with him but man it is BAD).
He said I WANTED A GRILL CHEESE SANDWICH NOT A BACON SANDWICH!
I was in the living room off the kitchen and said well Toad you said yes to a bacon Sandwich?
Toad- BUT I WANT A GRILL CHEESE!
Rob- you have a bacon sandwich or you can get down and go back to playing, we are not making you something different but your welcome to get down if that is not what you want.
Toad(who is getting really mad cuss we are not playing his game,please picture this with the attitude of a 13 year old girl in his voice)
WHAT IS IT WITH YOU TWO? BACON BACON BACON EVERYDAY YOU ALWAYS TRY TO GET ME TO EAT BACON. huff! huff! huff!
I said Toad your welcome to get down.
He then sat at the table giving his bacon sandwich the dirtiest look EVER! I was thinking man your such a spoiled brat , either eat the freaking sandwich or get the hell down but i am not in the mood for this all day long.
Rob said nothing to Jax but i am sure he was thinking about the same as I was.
Toad- (again 13 year old girl attitude)FINE I am not eating that I am going to play! FINE
and he jumps down from the table.

To get to the toys he has to walk past Rob who turns to him and says calm as anything and in a sweet tone
"I want to answer your one question, why bacon bacon bacon all the time? (toad giving him a dirty look) We are just trying to support the Ontario Hog Farmers."
I am not kidding you I started to laugh so hard coffee came out my nose (just a bit but it still happened).
Toad carried on not understanding the humour and Rob finished his breakfast,I sat in the living room and felt blessed! I am soo beyond lucky to call that guy my husband! He makes me laugh when i want to scream all the time, we parent differently and the same but mostly he can see the humour in the craziness and reminds me to see it too.

I LOVE YOU BABE and that is why I had kids with you!

Baby Jesus has a headache for sure!

Sorry a bit late.. forgot to post :(

Over the last two days Rob and I have gone to two amazing school/daycare Christmas concerts.
The toad LOVES being on stage (Imagine that) he said to me a couple of weeks ago when talking about the rehearsals that not one family was in the audience.. He was upset that it was just his teacher.

Some kids cry, some freeze but not our Toad he eats it up. I think last night I figured it out that he is most at home or most himself while on stage. That is pretty cool to see your kids spirit shine at something.

The school concert was great but there were 35-40 JK/SK kids on the stage at one time so we didn't really see the Toad. Last night was the daycare one and it ROCKED...

The Toad has no idea that his whole family counts down the days each year to see him perform, but we do.

Last night we got to the church with Nonna, Papa, Grandma x 2 and Rob, Camryn and myself.  Toad was with this class and ready to rock. As they entered the church they all were rockin some shades, a letter around their neck and some form of a prop.

The toad.. He had baby Jesus! BIG responsibility.. Jesus, the lords son was in our little guys hands.. and you guessed it he was rockin a big letter J on his board.

He made it the stage , got into position,  listened as his peeps read off their scripts and then it got to him. He busted out all his info on Baby J. and little did we know he was given 2 letters.. he was moving his J and getting the K out when it happened.. He dropped the lords son on his head! YIKES.. the crowd went crazy laughing and he looked up.. I thought oh great.. I was not worried he would cry I was worried that it would be come his thang.. dropping baby Jesus on his head to get a laugh.. this was not going to be good.. but thankfully he moved on to K rocked it and let the rest of his peeps do their letters :)

We love watching Jax on stage, we love watching our families enjoy the whole thing too but mostly I love how happy it makes our boy! Sorry Jesus!

Santa Baby

Sunday was picture day with Santa. Toad was PUMPED, he has always loved seeing Santa. Toad never cried, never acted scared nothing. Last year Lovely was a bit young and totally didn't get it, so I was excited to see her reaction to the Big guy.

My mom has made the kids the cutest matching sweaters so we took those with us and headed to the mall.

As we got out of the van Toad turned to Lovely and said we are going to see Santa Camryn! Camryn said what we all believe was Santa. Toad freaked out and was screaming she said Santa she said Santa.

We walked towards Saint Nick and she kept saying Santa , Santa. We found a bench and got the kids in their sweaters, Lovely was looking at Santa pointing and smiling saying That! That!. We jumped in line, and before too long it was our turn.
Santa here we come.

Rob help Jax up in his spot and I waited till the last second to get Miss Lovely into her seat on Santa knee.  I watched, waited and then BOOM little girl on Santa's knee I turned and walked away. I didn't hear any crying so I was excited.. I turned around and this is what I saw!

Lots to see in this picture I know.. Everyone is looking at me.. Santa looks actually afraid of a kid.. a little girl. Jax is such a big boy in his sweater but he too is looking to me to see what we do.. But Lovely is classic, she is a fighter so she was screaming, climbing and did get off his knee.

LOVE THIS PICTURE and Santa too funny....

Stanley saw that!

All good Gundry Christmas traditions start with Keri Lyn. No she is not a Gundry, no she is not a member of our family (by blood) but all my fave traditions for our children have started with her and I love it.

This year we have a new member of the family, it is Stanley the Elf on the Shelf. Aunt Keri Lyn gave it to the kids in the end of November and we have been enjoying him since.

The Elf on the Shelf is a billion dollar idea a wise ass momma marketed and is sitting pretty on(not jealous at all I am sure my Leprechaun on the Shelf idea is gonna take off closer to March.)

You get your Elf and a book and the fun and reindeer games begin. I read the story to the toad which lets the kids know they have to name their Elf and once the Elf is named he comes alive, he can't talk to you cuss that is the big mans rule for all the elves. He can not be touched or his magic will be lost. This magic allows Sir Stanley (almost named Frisbee) to fly back to the North Pole each night to let Santa know if you have been Naughty or Nice.
And when he returns each night he finds a new place to sit in your house to watch you.  Stanley has landed in the Christmas Tree, behind the TV, on the fireplace  through our light fixture at the dinner table and stuck in the door.

We have enjoyed having Stanley in the house, I have mostly enjoyed him during countless melt downs that have ended in a blink of an eye, I have loved having Stanley with us while getting the kids off in the morning.. You can not even imagine how fast a 4 year old can get boots on. All we have to say is Stanley is watching....

Plus at the end of the day Stanley and I have a little chat about what the Toad got up to when I was not around.

BUT see this works both ways.. Jaxon has enjoyed having Stanley here when I raise my voice, or Rob jokes with him and gets him going. Stanley saw that he says to us. My fave was when Rob smacked my butt the first day Stanley arrived and Jax screams out DAD STANLEY SAW THAT!

Stanley I sure hope you like living here as much as we like having you and can you tell Santa I am sorry for raising my voice at the Toad but for the love of god that kid can dilly dally.

Oh and don't tell Jax I keep touching you..

Cuss I love the fact that he Believes!!!

A parrot in a cage or the best gift I will give this year

I am so excited about a gift I will be giving on Monday. No not to my kids, nope not my husband or my secret Santa at work.. Nope to a 30 something year old man I don't know that well , who i have met only a couple of times and has everything.

Strange I know but I am so excited.. So I figure he doesn't know me well so he has no clue about my blog so I can spill it here early. Want to see the gift...

 Here it is

A parrot in a cage.

The back story to this little bird goes back a month. I had been back to work for 2 months and Linds and I needed a road trip... and it happened that work required us to have one. We loaded into the good old work caravan , got us some coffee and a OP2S, two GPS and hit the road. We laughed, we talked and we laughed some more.. ahhh work! Gotta love it.

Part of our visit was to check out this amazing new arena that EastLink sponsored. We met up with Tim our regional manager of marketing and he gave us a tour. The arena is bright, new, beautiful and perfect for the community.  After that visit we needed to do the portion that was my job... (this is when we met the parrot)..

We headed to the old empty office, this office once housed a company owned by Tim's parents for 40 some on years. It is a old school house.

Linds and I got out of the truck and made our way towards the building, Tim asked us 3 or 4 times if we were sure we wanted to go in. We answered out of lack of knowledge..

WOW! WOW is all I will say. That is no place for a women!

As we walked around Linds and I made jokes and complained of the poor air quality. We made our way upstairs to what use to be Tim's dad's office and then his for years and years. We looked around and joked some more. Then Tim pointed up and said I remember when I was little and I gave that to my dad. We turned looked up and saw the parrot in the cage.

That's when I realized this was not an abandoned building to Tim. It was a building filled with memories of his life.  This building was the one Tim had gone to when he saw his dad at work, he had started working there as a teenager, got married and had kid of his own well his family ran this company and now we stood starring at a dirty, old parrot in a cage.

We left but I could not stop thinking of that parrot, see we are cleaning out that office and will some day get rid of the building. I couldn't have that parrot go in the dumpster.

So I called in the help of a little Elf.. A elf we will call Lew, and he saved the parrot.

I washed him up and cleaned his cage and now I am SOO excited to give this gift.  I am not sure if he will like it as much as I like it? Not sure if he will hang it in his office but what I know is that special memory will not be tossed away on my watch!

Great gifts are all around you!!