Life at Oak Grove

8 years ago, my son Dominic came into our lives.   He was 10 days late… and ended up being delivered via c-section since I already one.    He is a delight and loves all kind of animals – small or big.   Well almost all kinds…. check the video to see why I am saying this!

Love you buddy.

I pray that God be with you every day of your life.   May you continue to follow him daily and learn to listen to him.

Love,

   Maman

Picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Today in the mail I got a nice surprise…

My certificate has finally arrived!   Yeah!

The first thing I saw was this nice folder which contains the certificate.

And voilà – Graduated with honours from the Social Media Certificate Program.

Sweet!

My sweet daughter is turning four TODAY!

Here’s a little something to celebrate her birthday.

I love you sweetheart!  Continue to grow and love God the way you do.

XOXOXO

Slideshow design generated with Smilebox

A photo slideshow by Smilebox

Happy birthday to my third son.

Love you lots.

maman

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

On this day in 2001, I became a mother for the first time.

Today, Alexandre is celebrating is 10th birthday. 

My prayer for him is that he will hear God speaking to him as he grows up and continue to help people around him.

Happy Birthday Alexandre!  I love you very much!

Digital slideshow customized with Smilebox

We have a tradition in our house.  When a special day like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day come, we honor not only the Dad or Mom in the house but the future ones as well.

So this morning, even though some of the gifts were only for my husband there was something special for the boys as well.

Hubby “playing” with the card I made him.

The card – He loves fishing.  

Alexandre had found a small book for him at the last AWANA store.

And Alexandre checked our comic list and found some comics that he didn’t had in the boxes in our garage.   The kids bought them for him. *grin*

Finally, the BIG surprise…

Jasmine wanted to unwrap one too – so Daddy let her help him.    At her age, she doesn’t understand completely what we are doing.

NERF Dart Tag products!  (Thanks to Hasbro Canada for whom I did a review a while back!)

Jérémy is very happy to have his own Nerf blaster.

Dominic is very serious with his Nerf blaster.

Alexandre is taking the pose.   Watch out world!

Finally, Daddy and Jasmine with his ultimate Nerf Swarmfire.    

Jasmine also wanted her own Nerf blaster…  I think Hasbro Canada should consider making a Nerf line for girls – all pink.   After all if tools exists in the pink colors why not Nerf Blasters as well?  

It’s a thought….  maybe next Spring we could see a new line of products for girls only.  I know one little girl who would love this!   Mom too by the way.   We could compete against the boys that way.   *grin*

Today it is our anniversary.   Thirteen years ago we were married.   I am blessed to have my best friend beside me every day.   He is the best gift that God could have given me.  

Here’s some of the memories of this special day for us!

Today is my 2nd son birthday – he is turning 7 years old.  Time flies I tell you.  

In honour of him, I have made this smilebox presentation.

Enjoy!

This free slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Have a wonderful day Dominic!   I love you.  mom xo

Earlier this morning. I was checking my emails before lunch when I received an email from Mom Central Canada.

Back in the Fall, I had received an email from them mentioning their new Blogger Grant Program and I decided to apply on it.

During the Christmas Holidays, an email from Mom Central Canada mentioned that the first winners of the grant program had been selected and that an email would be sent to them in the following days to inform them that they have been selected.

Part of me was hoping to get selected but I had not received any email so far so I assumed that I wasn’t part of the ones selected.

Life was still going on and for us it means homeschooling.   So when January 3rd arrived we continued where we had left off before (and a bit during) Christmas.  

Today is our swimming lessons in the afternoon.  My morning is quite busy in making sure the two younger ones take a nap so that they are rested for the swimming lesson as well as teaching the older kids about the Human Body.

So imagine my surprise to received the following email before lunch…

Hi Isabelle,
This January, ten Canadian bloggers have been selected to receive a Mom Central Blogger Grant as part of our commitment to encouraging and supporting the creative, thoughtful, helpful and dedicated members of the Canadian blogging community. Thank you for submitting your idea for a blog post that will help make the lives of busy Moms and their families better. I’m excited to share that you’ve been selected as one of the first recipients of 2011 for a $250 Mom Central Canada Blogger Grant.  Our team of judges had a very tough job of selecting the top 10 entries but yours stood out in terms of creativity and thoughtfulness.  
We’ll be using Paypal to send you the $250 for the Grant.  Please provide the best email address for us to send the funds to. We’d love to share your post with rest of our online community, so once your post is up, feel free to send us a link!  I’ve attached a button that you can post on your site if you like – don’t feel bad about braggin’ just a little  ;)  
Special thanks to our Blogger Grants judges – Catherine Jackson, VP of Communications at General Mills Canada and Ron Tite, Creative Director at Sharpe Blackmore Euro RSCG.
Just a reminder that this year we’ll be giving away $10,000 in Blogger Grants! You may apply for the next round of Grants starting in February.  You’ll see an email from us, so keep your eyes peeled.  
Congratulations!
Kathryn
PS.  I’ve pasted your entry below.  
--
Kathryn
Managing Director, Mom Central

I just couldn’t believe my eyes!   Like my 2nd son would say with a serious face “I can’t believe my eyeballs!”  *grin*

I mean I totally wasn’t expecting it.   See the nice logo they have sent me at the bottom of this post.   You can be sure I will post it on my blog!

Now I need to sit down and write my post.  Not this afternoon though as we have swimming lessons…   Wondering what the subject will be?   The title is RVing with Young Children.  Coming soon to a computer near you!

PS I’m all happy inside and all excited at the same time.   *grin*

On December 5th, my kids and I took some time in the afternoon to put up the Christmas tree.

Our Christmas tree is artificial – a slim tree which doesn’t take as much place as a regular one.  This year, we opted to put it in our dining room which had more place than the living room.

Having kids that are a bit older is nice because this year, I asked Alexandre my 9 year old to put the tree together and spread the branches while the younger siblings were napping.

Then once the younger kids woke up, we tackled the tree.  

Having the kids to help now is extremely nice.  I don’t feel stressed or pressured anymore.   And they enjoy it so much.   Even my soon-to-be three years old participated eagerly and was VERY careful with our ornaments.

As much as I would like to have lights in our tree, it has been a couple of years since we put some in it.   The reason is very simple.   One set of the lights has only the red and blue that comes up.   Somehow the green has stopped functioning.   And personally I don’t like having only one or two colors in our tree.  One of these days I will be new lights but not this year.

   Here’s the final result of our tree this year.    As a tradition, only dad can put the star on top of the tree.   This star has been part of my youth believe it or not.   But it is still nice so we continue to use it every years.

The decorations in the tree comes from old Christmas and new ones.    We have a mix of ornaments from our younger years as well as new ornaments that represent our family.

As comic fans, we had to have some well-known characters in our tree.   Batman, Robin, Superman, Spider-man, Ironman, Wonderwoman, Catwoman, Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy as well as the Ewoks have joined our older collection of ornaments.

I also painted some.    A lady leaded a fun activity a couple of years ago at the church we were attending and I went.  Honestly, I wasn’t too sure I would be able to paint something but it turned out quite nice and I cherish this painting very much.

Also in our Christmas tree, each kid has three special ornaments.   One being a Christmas ball with picture of them during their first year of life (one as a baby and one a bit older).   My daughter Jasmine was born on Dec 19th so her older picture is about a year later which was her second Christmas.   Also each child has a Baby First Christmas and Grandchild First Christmas in the tree.   Having four kids, that makes 12 special ornaments in there.   Other special ornaments are also included in the tree like our new house, our dating ornament, as well as two special figurines for our wedding year.

Intertwined with Christian ornaments, there are Christmas balls.  Most of them I made myself one year with glass balls and paint.   It gives a marble style to the ball.   Another one that is included in the tree is the ornament on the left side in the picture below.  This is an older Christmas ball that used to be in the tree at my parents house.   Somehow, this one is my son Alexandre’s favourite.   *grin*   It is very different than the ones I made…

Other decorations are around the house.  But this year, I took out my LEMAX small collection of houses.    I’ve decided to put it on the mantle above the fireplace.    One of these days, I would like to put it under the tree like my mother-in-law.  

Voilà! – That’s our Christmas tree for the year.  

Merry Christmas everyone!