Thanks for...

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Kingston this past weekend.

There was so much to be thankful for....

Apples to pick.

Apples to eat.

Adventures that were had.

Smiles that were shared.
New friends to play pretend with.

Sunshine to play games in with a brother who travelled long distances to be there. Coffee and cuddles.

Music and curiosity.

Aunts and Uncles to play with.

Boston cousins that travel so far.

Pancakes made by Poppy.Adorable babiesAnd so many more that cameras did not capture:

Great grandparents that visited
Picnics that were shared.
Turkey dinner made by Dad, the master chef.

Sunny walk to the park.

Hot pies with whipped cream.

Searching for strangely shaped squash at the market.

Samples at the cheese factory.

Soft ice cream to lick.

Goats named Knit and Purl.

Ferry rides across the lake.

Cold beer in the hot sun.

Admiring the lake on the mountain.
Babies that fall asleep on long car rides...


God is good, all the time, He is good.

Om Johnny

Jonathan came for a last minute visit this weekend. Yippee!! River was excited to finally meet his uncle, and Jude was thrilled to have some play time with Om Johnny. Unfortunately he was bearing bad news - he is moving out west to Vancouver. That makes two brothers in B.C...boooo. I guess this means a road trip is in order. Hang on, cross the country with two under two? Mmmm perhaps we should look into flights.

We also fired up the smoker and made some delicous ribs and were excited to finally meet Trish and Terry's newest addition, Helena. She is adorable and sooo cuddly. I never realized how wriggly my guys were until I held her! Jude was excited to have some play time with Garret, and we enjoyed catching up with Trish and Terry.


Wait...were did those two little toddlers run off to?

Here we are!

On Being the Second Child

So, I've noticed that Jude gets a lot of 'face' time on the blog. I'm trying very hard to give River lots of attention, despite the fact that he is the infamous second child who usually never gets as many pictures taken of them. Today I want to share just pictures of River. He has all of a sudden been bursting with personality, it's like a little switch flipped and he is seeing things he never noticed before and is delighted by them (dogs, lawnmowers, people, anything moving or making noise). I love his smile, especially since it usually follows what is a pretty serious look (River tends to furrow his brows and give some stone cold stares). He is also a huge flirt, often he will smile at someone while cocking his head sideways, much like a puppy. I have yet to capture it on film, but it melts me every time!

Jude's Dubs

Jude has been speaking for a while and loves to say peoples names. When our little family is all together he often points from one of us to another and says our names. Mama, Rivev, DAAAA!(he yells this one very loud for some reason) and Joooooo (Jude).

He also has learned many of the names of his aunts, uncles and grandparents and loves looking at pictures of them and saying their names and LOVES when they come over so he can remind them of their names over and over. Some examples:
My dad is puPSS
My mom is bePSS
Nicole's dad is popop
Nicole's mom is Nana
Nicole's sister Naomi is naynay
Nicole's brother Isaac is ice
My brother Rob is bobob
My sister Ashley is black ice
and my personal favorite,my brother Scott is uncle kawk
phonetics are fun eh Jude!

Thirty, He's Thirty Years Old!

That's right, my younger man is no longer so young. On Monday Kurt turned the big 3-0 (by the look on River's face in the above picture, he is just as appalled as you are). Way back when, Kurt dreamed of having a huge outdoor bash complete with Cuff the Duke playing a concert for him. Unfortunately they were booked for the evening of our party and we had to make alternate plans. We ended up having a great party with friends and family. My family even made the trek from Kingston, yay for braving the crazy roads with all the cottage traffic.

The theme of the party was "Kurt's Favourites". This meant pie instead of cake, as well as a campfire (despite the torrential rain...it eventually cleared up). Also, I asked everyone to wear shirts depicting either a band/music festival or beer. The best was Jeff's shirt which he made out of duct tape that declared "Tom Petty drinks Budweiser" - he won the imaginary prize for best shirt (second place to Danielle for her kickin' Pink Floyd shirt, honorable mention to Paul for his vintage 'Diamond Rio' shirt). Everyone also contributed to the "Top 30 Great Things About Kurt at 30" list which was both hilarious and heartwarming. Not to be outdone, Ang rewrote the words to Sublime's "What I Got" and had Kurt sing it, well done Ang.

The party didn't stop there though! The festivities continued the next day when we took off to a friend's cottage for a few days with Kurt's parents. Even though it rained (again), it didn't matter. It was awesome to be on the lake, go fishing and paddle boating, and enjoy another campfire. The boys had a great time, it was fun watching Jude fishing. With the first fish caught he was torn between being really excited, but also a little afraid of the fish.

All in all, I would say it was an awesome celebration of the 30 years God has blessed Kurt with.

Camping at Grundy

Well...we survived camping with two babes under the age of two and we had tons of fun! We had a blast camping with some friends at Grundy Provincial Park with lots of kids, sun, lake, campfires,late night swimming and a beer or...two.

Pictured above is a smattering of some of the children we camped with, it was impossible to get them all together!

Despite the large number of people camping (8 families) all together we had some great wildlife sightings right on our campsite:
raccoons...many many many raccoons (somewhere between 6 and 20)
pileated woodpeckers
red-tailed hawks
catbird
loons
dragonflies swarming an ant migration (creepy and amazing at the same time)
and....a bear...luckily he was more interested in the raspberries than our coolers

The boys had a great time, Jude enjoyed having so many people to play with...and so many people to mooch food from. Below is a montage of Jude eating on our trip. He did do other things like swim swim swim swim in the lake,dig dig dig in the sand,and kick kick kick balls but I don't have those moments recorded on film. Turns out having two babies on a camping trip is a little busy.

Figuring out how to eat watermelon for the first time...and learning the green part does not taste good!
Wait a minute...I thought the Huizengas only had daughters...oh wait, that's Jude being a mooch.
Moat-meal....mmmmm....I mean oatmeal.
1st Juicebox, it was love at first sight.

River also enjoyed having lots of kids around to entertain him, it was fun watching Jolene and River interact (well, as much as two babies will interact with each other). He wasn't super interested in the water but preferred to stick his hands in the sand, he only ended up consuming *small* amounts of sand.

Kurt organized a game called "Beers of Ontario" (or B.O. for short...). Everyone brought a beer brewed in Ontario and we rated each in a taste test. We declared Great Lakes Brewery's "Roundhouse Ale" the winner. The worst was "Mad Tom"...really really gross.

Can't wait until next year already!