September iPhone

September via the iPhone

The kids reunited with our bikes. And a great 80 year old basement backdrop. We're hoping to see about painting it. The smiles on those faces is wonderful!

The kids have their toys again and have read as many books as they can and built many a tower in the first week that they were un packed.

We have had beautiful weather. It's finally starting to turn into chilly autumn and I haven't yet figured out how to embrace that. But loving the blue skies.

Loving the colors of Autumn

Milayla is cooking up a storm in that little kitchen of theirs and always anxious to share it with mommy.

This picture is kind of gross. But that's how the water looked after cleaning one room in our apartment. This was AFTER the cleaning lady cleaned it. We've done a lot of scrubbing around here. Guess that means that we should just be grateful that we have a home to scrub!

The kids excited to have our table set up (which is not in a different room) even though it was still covered in boxes at this point.

Lots of playgrounds to discover while the weather is still decent for it.

The kids love to climb. The plan is to start wall climbing soon - hopefully in the new year!

Atticus warmed up pretty quickly to my friend, Carol, who he thinks is pretty funny. This picture doesn't show it very well, but they're buddies now.

Atticus has finally taken a liking to his bowtie and has been asking for one in a different color. I love it.

The kids were super excited to get to go to the birthday party for these awesome girls! Mila and Tali. I somehow missed getting a picture of them both.

The kids made pirates and fairies at this really great art studio in Montreal. Both kids picked making a pirate.

And then they painted a little sandy island for the pirate to be glued to. Milayla opted to leave the sandy island out of the picture and said her pirate can fly. Imagination. It's awesome.

The kids did great and had such fun celebrating with Mila and Tali. It was so nice for them to have some friends so quickly after we moved here.

The finished masterpieces!

Atticus'

Milayla's

We're loving market here and wishing that it was closer. And loving that our stroller is so great for filling with out tasty veggies.

The house hunt went on forever but at least it came to an end. The kids quite enjoyed exploring all the nooks and crannies of each and every place. We found ONE place that had a backyard and I so wished that it would have worked out so the kids could have a place right outback to go and play - it didn't. They seem to love were we are at though and Atticus enjoys calling our playroom their backyard. While they can't build snowmen in the playroom I am happy that they enjoy it.

The kids have closets for the first time ever. This has multiplied their enjoyment of hide and seek to an unfathomable level. We play at least once a day; usually more.

Milayla got tired of waiting for toilet training (which I was waiting to be in our permanent place for) and pulled out the toilet seat while we were in the furnished place still. Guess we better get started! She is pretty happy with herself.

She is also pretty keen to learn how to drive. But that's going to have to wait yet.

We saw a lot of apartments and we had different strategies throughout the days of how to make it a fun family activity. One day it was a challenge to try and take artsy photos on the phone. The kids loved it. We had fun, too. This seems to be the only one that was left on my phone though. Sad!

The excitement about the library here is unbelievable. We come home with stacks and stacks of books every single time. When we get to the library the kids hunker down in this one row of books and just start stacking them up beside themselves as they go along. It's beautiful. I love that Jason gets to read to them in french more now. I'm very slowly learning to read french again as well which is great.

one day Atticus devised a plan that he can read multiple books at once if he sets them up together. Nicely done. But not very great for reading.

Atticus and Milayla decided one day that it was time to start putting up Christmas decorations. I told them we needed to wait a little longer. So they put up their lego tree in the mean time. So sweet.

Lots of picnics at the park!

And then getting to walk home with daddy when he meets us after work.

A good month. I could have done with less apartment visits but I think we did pretty good at finding a little balance and good ways to handle the full days. We did it!

General Conference, Apple Picking and Pie

On the first weekend of October every year (and the first weekend in April) we get to gather together with our family and our church community to listen to messages from the prophet of our church along with other leaders. The event is called General Conference. This year we were pretty excited to have the live broadcasts at times which made it possible for us to watch them live as opposed to watching them a but later via internet broadcasting. This also meant that we could gather together at our local meeting house with other members in the area and listen all together. It felt pretty special to be able to sit in the chapel with our family and the other families in our area. It was also the first year that the kids were able to watch all 4 sessions of General Conference and they were doing really well with recognizing some of the leadership. Not too shabby for a 2 and 4 year old. Their favorite part? Getting to watch President Monson wave to all the people in Conference building. It was a wonderful conference, as always, and I am looking forward to getting my conference issue Ensign so that I can start high lighting and studying (I think I'll get another one of those conference journals as well!). 

Well, to preface all those great conference session we woke up early to head out of the city to an apple picking farm. We lucked out and picked the perfect farm. It was nestled in some beautiful rolling hills that were covered in autumn colored trees. The drive was spectacular. The rain held off just long enough for us to pick a 20lb bag of apples (which we are still enjoying in various forms). We had a tractor ride out to the orchard and played on the great playground afterward. The fresh air and a little escape from the busy city was the perfect way to kick off the conference weekend. 

Then, between conference sessions, we made our conference apple pie on step at time. After all the sessions we all sat down and talked about our favorite parts of conference. Atticus is old enough now that he is starting to really remember our little traditions and I think it helps Milayla to get excited about them as well.

It was a great weekend and though it was very full between the apple picking and 4 sessions (plus the priesthood session for Jason) we really enjoyed the break from the very full days of trying to get familiar with Montreal and settle into our new home.

It was a great spiritual refill.

Now, enough with the randomly inserted apple picking pictures - please enjoy the photos of our apple collecting :)

LOVE those little pigtails that always seem to be falling out..

Atticus was in search of just the right apples to put into our pie

Look! more apples!

I wish you could see Milayla's facial expression in this one a bit better. It was priceless. 

Milayla decided to lick the apples that she picked before putting them in the bag. It's a good thing we've washed them before sharing :)

Everyone eager to head up the ladder

Trying to see where the good apples are

The Atticus and Milayla series: 

I love these kids.

Our tractor ride back to the farmhouse and playground. Beautiful surroundings!

Milayla LOVES these gumboots. They were perfect for marching around those rows of apple trees!

Having fun on the playground

I think I need some more practice at getting top crusts to work. But here is the pie before it went in the oven. I forgot to snap a photo of it after it was baked when it looked much more appealing.