These are a Few of my Favourite Things...

A few weeks ago, I visited Create With Joy’s Friendship Friday Hop and ended up posting about How the Gift of a Quarter Changed my Life.

These things happen. One of's.

But then, I stopped by this week and it happened again.

My brief comment about "The Sound of Music" ended up being a blog post titled...

These are a Few of my Favourite Things.

This is What Being 104 Years Old Looks Like.

Happy 104th Birthday
Great, Great Aunt Isabelle!

Tweet Share this with your Friends.

Don't Miss a Post! It's as easy as selecting the Get Journeys of The Zoo delivered by email button.

  Besos, The Zoo

Make Your Kids Birthday Party Special with The Loot Bag Lady! [Review]

When I was a kid, a party wasn't a party without loot bags filled with comic books, popeye cigarettes, jaw breakers and a plethora of other sweets.

To say that things have changed since then would be an understatement.

Nowadays, Parents want to educate and inspire. Teeth rotting sugar highs need not apply. In high demand...

Unique and Creative Loot Bags from The Loot Bag Lady!

Are you Hard to Shop for? Create a Birthday Bucket List.

It was my birthday recently. Happens every year. Believe it or not. I’m getting older.

Normally birthdays don't phase me much (although 30 was pretty tough) but this year, I realize that I look my age... If I'm lucky.

Wow Mom, You Look Old! P.S. Happy Birthday

I'm not a materialistic person. I'd give away most everything that I have. And did just that in 2005.

However, over the years, I've created an unwritten "Birthday Bucket List". I mean some things money just can't buy (See #11). So, in case you think I'm hard to shop for, I've made it really easy for you.

My Birthday Bucket List...

Letter to My Biological Mother {Adoption}

It's been 41 years since the first and last time that we set eyes on each other. I don't remember anything about that event. I'm sure you do.

Every year, on the day of my birth, I think about you... about being adopted.

All day.

Happy 3rd Birthday to My Litter & Nipissing Checklist-36 Months.

Three years ago today, I gave birth to a litter. Also referred to as "the kids", "newest Zoo members" or "Alexander, Maximilian and Artemis".

I don't think that I've ever posted about their birth story. I'll save that for another time. I'll just say that if anyone ever tells you that "you'll know when you're in labour", don't believe them. Not for a minute.

Artemis is very happy that it's her birthday today. Then again, it's been her birthday for several weeks now.

Today she just happens to be right (1 in 365 chance).

By the time you're reading this, we've winterized our house, loaded up Bucephalus and are on our way to Toronto.

We will spend the next four days at Nanna's place. Thursday night is reserved for our annual Christmas/Birthday Party with Uncle Fred and the Abeulos. Early Saturday morning, we will leave on our 5,000km drive to Southern Mexico.

Fun times!

For the past two years, I've been documenting the kids progress in comparison to the Nipissing Development Milestone Checklist. Check out 12 Months, 15 Months, 18 Months, 24 Months, and 30 months.

I hope that all this information will be relevant to my upcoming memoirs and/or enable me to prove to the kids that I actually paid attention. If not, the Grandparents love to read it. It's boring. You've been warned.

Here's how they're doing in general and in comparison to the Nipissing District Developmental Checklist for 36 months.

The Time Everyone Wished a Me Happy Birthday (But It Wasn’t).

I've always wanted to attend an event that I wasn't invited to. Be a "Wedding Crasher" of sorts. I don't want to ruin the event but just fake it for a night. Note that I've never actually seen the movie but I can only imagine the plot.

I have been to an awards ceremony uninvited and brought along our hitchhiker. Yes, you read that correctly, our hitchhiker. His name was Felix and he was from Germany on his way to Belize to meet his Swedish girlfriend.

But that doesn't really count as being a "crash" because we did know one person there.

Did I mention that we were in Mexico and kind of stood out like a sore thumb?


But, I won't go into that story because then I'd have to tell you about the woman at the event that wanted to breed Phoenix with her Mutt Boxer. We told her he was neutered but she didn't believe us and asked to see his scar. Trust me, I couldn't make this up if I wanted to.

The ceremony reminded me of that other time in Mexico...

Where have Two Years Gone? Happy 2nd Birthday!

Two years ago today, the litter kids were born.

On that Friday, early in the morning (12:28am to be exact), Alexander was first, followed less than a minute later by Maximilian and rounded out with Artemis. Each child gets their "own minute" even though they were born in less than three.

Since the beginning, we've been using the Nipissing Developmental Checklists to track their progress against predefined milestones.

I'm pleased to announce that they are right on track!


Click on the image to enlarge.

So much so that for breakfast, they ate their weight in pancakes (official weight to be determined at their doctor's appointment tomorrow).

Update: Max weighed 11.46kg, 25lbs2oz (up from 10.55kg, 23lbs2oz from July almost 5 months). Artemis weighed 10.66kg, 23lbs8oz (up from 9.15kg, 20lbs2oz lbs from July, almost 5 months). Max was 33.75" tall (up from 32" in July) and Artemis was 33" tall (up from 31" in July).

Then, we got all dressed up and went for a long walk with the dogs. On our way home we stopped off at Uncle Eric's for coffee and our first taste of chocolate (Artemis is a HUGE fan).

The afternoon was spent de-constructing the living room. The kids did an excellent job (they're naturals). They especially liked it when Ed put a hole in the wall with a hammer (we're having renos done while we're away).


All good things must come to an end (or so they say) and Poppa went home this evening.


We're in the home stretch now and are very very busy. The plan is to head to Toronto on Tuesday.

Check out our other Nipissing Developmental Checklist posts.

Where Has The Past Two Years Gone???

  Besos, The Zoo

Happy Birthday Bro & James Bond 007 Marathon #5

Today is Uncle Andrew's 36th birthday. Only a couple more years and then he'll be as OLD as me (tee, hee). Best.Uncle.Ever.

In tribute, we continued on with our James Bond Marathon. You see, the James bond series might well be my brothers favourite movies. So you ask, if that's the case, why didn’t you borrow the movies you're missing from him. And well we could have if he hadn’t gotten rid of his entire James Bond VHS collection several years ago. Note that he has since upgraded to DVD's.

When I asked Andrew to pick his favourite one he said; "that's too tough, I like them all". So there you have it people. They're ALL great!

Important Note. We regret to inform you that we skipped #4 "Thunderball" (1965) as we don't (yet) have it in our collection. Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Tonight we watched the fifth movie in the James Bond franchise called "You Only Live Twice" (1967).


While this might be my favourite movie so far, I only rated it a "7" (so did Ed). I really liked the plot (although they could have removed some of the fluff, maybe 30 minutes worth) and James' allies (two women and one man) were absolutely amazing. They really made the movie. To top it off, there was even another (evil) woman that he got friendly with. The whole movie was "shot" in Japan, however, they even managed to involve "Q" (and his gadgets), M and Moneypenny. Interesting fact: The theme song was sung by Nancy Sinatra. Note that like the previous movie, I had not seen this before (I had seen the first two).

The problems were that there were too many continuity errors (in one shot she'd have a shirt on, in the next she'd only be in her bikini, another, he had a bare chest--Japanese custom and in another he'd have full chest hair) and many parts were unbelieveable (even for James Bond).

Tomorrow night we'll be reviewing the sixth movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969) with James Bond #2, George Lazenby.

  Besos, The Zoo

One Year Ago Today the Litter Was Born. Happy First Birthday!

One year ago today, Alexander, Maximilian and Artemis were born. Wow, what a year.

So much has happened and I’ve tried to capture most of it in my journal and share it with you (through our blog). Here’s a recap.


(This was taken at 25 weeks, I measured over 40 weeks so you can imagine how big I was by 30 weeks, 3 days. I was HUGE!)

On December 11 at 12:28, 12:29 and 12:30am, Alexander, Maximilian and Artemis came into this world (in that order). They were technically delivered in less than 3 minutes, however, for the sake of records, each one gets their own “minute”.


Alexander


Maximilian


Artemis (on the left)

By 8am I was back in my hospital room, had called all the grandparents, grabbed a couple of hours sleep and had started to pump. Speaking of which, one year later, I am still pumping. I’m hoping to continue to pump until April (or when we get back from Mexico). I have 54 bags of frozen breast milk in our neighbour’s (Eric The Sheriff) deep freeze. That's about 550oz (70 cups!) which should make about 70 8oz bottles which should last around 12 days at 6 bottles a day (3 per kid). All of this milk (surplus) was produced in September, October, November and December.

On December 19, Alexander was baptised and at 7:13am he passed away from complications associated with "Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC)". Not a day goes by, where we don’t think of him.


Their first visit with the Abeulos.


Mother's Day


On July 30, Max and Artemis had a “Baptism Extraordinaire”.


July and August were spent up at “Hood Family Farms” and one week in September was spent camping in Algonquin Park.


Celebrated their first Halloween.

Since then, the kids have gotten (four) teeth (each), can crawl, stand and are almost walking, play hide and seek, laugh, are mischievous and have really developed their own unique personalities. They’re little people.

We cherish all the time that we have with our family.

Happy Birthday Kids!

  Besos, The Zoo