Two good pictures of Joey from the Baptism

 

Okay the pictures were posted backwards but what had happened was I asked Joey to smile for a picture and he thought about it for a sec (picture 2) and then started dancing (picture 1).  My kids are such clowns!

Yes Mom, I think I do have a 36 hour day! Actually I think it's just that my minutes are actually 90 seconds long versus everyone else only having 60 seconds!  It's 7:40 PM, Aislynn stayed late until 6:10 and since then I have made dinner, fed the boys, done dishes, gave the boys a bath, got them into bed and asleep, swept and mopped the main floor, cleaned the main floor bathroom, ironed Aaron's shirts and started another load of laundry, and changed all of the garbages.  Not necessarily in that order but I'm motivated to get the rest done so I can finish wrapping Christmas presents.  I also need to make Christmas cards for Joey's teachers/therapists/bussing aides/drivers...we went with the traditional Pot of Gold for each of them and I'm thinking of putting coffee certificates in their cards from Starbucks or Tim Hortons.  We're also buying something for the classroom, I sent a list of ideas but haven't got a firm answer yet.  We were thinking of art supplies or maybe a CD player for the class or something like that. We'll be putting our "It's Great to Be an Albertan" money to good use and spreading it around a bit.

Joey's birthday extravaganzas are finally done

The last party was today at school, Aaron dropped off the chocolate milk, treats and cake which was iced with Joey's assistance (only a Mom could love it). So, we're done the birthdays for '05 just in time for the Christmas mayhem to begin!

We took the boys shopping tonight and got almost everything done, we have two things to buy at the mall and then just a few stocking stuffers and we're ready...except Aaron and I haven't bought anything for each other yet but that'll probably be in the next week, we just have to decide what we'd like to see under the tree this year. After an hour of wrapping I had to call it quits all I could see were dancing santas and colourful snowmen. Aaron works late tomorrow night so once the boys are in bed I'll be back at it again.

Christmas pictures were a success last Thursday! The girl took three pictures, the second one was perfect so we went with that. Pickup is the 13th, so that forces me to put off mailing my cards until the 14th...that's so not like me!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEY!

Today is Joey's official birthday, although we've already celebrated it twice on Friday. So today we went a different route and headed off to church to see cousin Easton get baptized. Now, usually Joey is the loud, uncontrollable one in the back of the church well today he was as good as gold (hopefully that's not a fluke) and his little brother Alex was the devillish one. He was soooo bad! Yelling when it was really quiet, trying to army crawl under the pews to get away from Mommy. It's lucky for Aaron that he was working and didn't have to witness this unruly behaviour although he did miss a good baptism, the priest wasted no time and managed to get eight wee ones baptised in less than an hour. That's pretty impressive! After the ceremony we headed over to Chris and Janine's (the proud parents) and I let the boys loose in the basement for a while, Aaron will be pleased to know that they were pretty content playing hockey/foosball with Uncle Dan. We headed home just before dinner time and both boys passed out for the thirty minute drive home and woke up refreshed and ready to go again for another few hours. Conveniently enough Aaron called to see how we're doing and now he's running late... lucky guy...

Helllllllllllllllllllllo down East!

It's nice to see you guys checking up on us! Have you started saving your pennies for your next trip out?!?
I think you guys have piqued Aaron's interest enough that he's willing to fly down home and see what it's all about down there. We told him that if he's lucky enough he may get to go to a corn boil (he still doesn't understand the whole idea) He's heard enough stories, seen enough pictures and has gotten picked on enough by Mom, Dad, H and I for not being past Manitoba that he's willing to leave the west for a family vacation.
Actually Aaron's taken 2 weeks off in August and was tossing around the idea of driving to the Maritimes....then Mom and Dad told him just how long of a drive it is and he basically said to heck with driving!
So, I've cancelled Aaron's big surprise birthday party so we can put the money towards a family vacation. Which makes more sense, the hall was $300 and the entertainment was $500 so toss in the food, decorations and even with it being BYOB I'd still be spending about $1300. It wouldn't have been a surprise anyways, Aaron found my notes on top of the microwave, it was in my business folder so I assumed it was safe. Guess I was wrong. I think I was more surprised that he was cleaning on top of the microwave then snooping in my folder. Ha Ha, jokes on me once again!
We'll keep you all informed of our plans to be...we really need a getaway vacation with the family and the boys are getting old enough to be away from home for longer periods so we're really hoping we can get our plans together to make this happen! Now if I can just get Alex fully potty trained then we're good to go anywhere!
Did I mention that it's ALL of us coming? It'll be the 1st MacAulay-Beck family vacation! The cat's out of the bag now Dad! I beat you to it!

The Birthday Boy!

 

Joey's gift opening

 

The closest Jeff will come to having his own...nobody will ever call me Auntie Lesley...

 

Blowing out the candles

 

This is soooooooo Aaron!

 

Courtney, one of the highlights of the night!

 

Alex's rocket launcher!

 

Here's Jeff riding the lion...

 

Here's the Birthday Pictures...

The Spiderman Cake, a joint effort between me and Dad, I had the easy part and baked the cake.

 

Joey's Birthday was a success!

What a great party! We had lots of friends, family, food, drinks and a whole lot of laughs! Uncle Jeff got the party started off on the right foot by riding around the main floor on Joey's new Elephant ride on stick toy compliments of cousin Lucie! You know it can only get better! Joey and Alex were on a sugar high and started crashing around 7 which was arrival time so we managed to keep Joey awake with his Batman game for the TV...so we didn't see much of the birthday boy except for blowing out his candles and opening his gifts! Courtney, our youngest party goer, just about two months old now, made her rounds last night...I think all of the grown ups had a turn to hold the baby, and what a good baby she kind of just dozed and smiled and looked around. It kind of makes three seem like a good idea...but then I think that Alex is almost out of diapers. I'm not sure I could be back down that road again. Alex had a good time last night and finally crashed at 9:30, Joey on the other hand was awake until 11:30 and if he was given the option I'm sure he would have tucked all of his new toys in bed with him. Joey had a hard time winding down so instead he just hit the wall and passed out. Much like the rest of us.
So, we have two parties down and only one to go, which is at school so I just need to provide the cake and chocolate milk and someone else can do the rest. Thank goodness!

It's A Red One!

Some people collect hockey cards and some people collect red vehicles! Ha Ha!  Here's the latest addition to the MacAulay Clan of Morinville.  I must say Aaron was reallllllllllly jealous!  You can kind of see Aaron's truck in the background, it's a 2003 Ford F-150 Lariat, with the two swing-out back doors (I'm not sure of the technical name for them)...so that's not too shabby...until Mom and Dad pull up in their fully loaded 2005 Ford ZF4 OffRoad, leather interior, sunroof...shiny red truck.  Now Aaron has the urge to go kick tires again...I think we may end of trading in the van (sad day for Les!) and getting an Expedition. We'll see what the New Year has in store for us.

Tomorrow is Joey's dayhome birthday party as well as family birthday party.  No theme this time although we're thinking of doing a poker run for Alex's next year and a snow carnival for Joey's next year...there was no snow this year so that was out of the question...we should have had a back up plan...

My son....the nudist...

Alex is definitely not a shy boy! We're still experimenting with the pottying and today Alex wore his Spiderman pull up pants and was desperate to keep them clean...so desperate that on our daily walk around the pond he tried to drop his drawers to have a pee! It's enclosed on a good portion of this pond so I'll let the boys run up a little ways so they have a taste of freedom (not too much though) so I see Alex stop and start pulling up his hoodie and I'm totally confused, I was thinking he had a bee fly up his sweater ( yeah I know how dumb that sounds) but then I see him hold his sweater under his chin the same way he does with a long shirt so he doesn't pee on it and then he starts to tug his pants down. So, I started hollering at him to pull up his pants and then he starts laughing this wicked little laugh and assumes the pee position. Conveniently enough the city workers finally showed up to finish our sound barrier wall and these guys were having quite the laugh, I'm sure it must have been a sight!
Now, I know why Joey was trained in one week in the middle of winter!

Madagascar Premiere Night

Here's a picture from last Tuesday when they boys watched Madagascar, Joey dragged his teddy bear downstairs and tucked him in with them. It was pretty cute!

Today was a very unsuccessful potty training day with Alex, he knew when he had to poop but would take off his diaper to poop on the floor and then put his diaper back on to pee in and then take if off again. Maybe by Christmas we'll get the hang of it. Alex had a super busy day, he went to the dentist this morning for a checkup, Aaron said he was really good and opened up for the dentist to see his teeth, then for the rest of the morning he was trying to get the little girls to open up and show him their teeth. Is playing doctor in the near future? Hope not!

Wow! What a weekend!

We planned to go to the cottage for a little R and R this weekend and although we did get out of the city there was not much down time...for Aaron that is. Hee hee. Deb phoned us Friday night to forewarn us that one of their trees fell over in their wicked wind storm they'd had that morning. Aaron estimated that it was at least two feet in diameter and probably 70 feet tall. It sounds pretty big, I'm sure he said 70 though. So, the guys ended up chopping down another 7 or 8 trees and cutting them up too. I suppose it's better to make the choice to take down the ones that are leaning versus waiting for them to fall down or worse yet fall down on your house. So, the boys and I tried to stay out of the way for the most part although they did enjoy their little rides on Uncle Eric's quad.
One of my dayhome kids' mom has had her baby. Elliot Fynn Kinghorn was born on November 13th weighing in at 8 lbs. 14 oz. Michelle and Elliot are doing really well, apparently he's a dream baby, sleeps well, eats well...and Connor's pretty proud to be a big brother! We're hoping they'll come to Joey's first birthday party on Friday and show him off.

The "Crazy Manners' Lady" was back at school tonight!

But tonight her big beef was that the therapists couldn't explain 'why' our children have motor planning difficulties. I wish one of us had the nerve to tell her to shut up so we can move on to the more important 'how can we help' . So they explained tonight that with children and speech deficiencies it's more about how to get the muscles in their mouth to do what they want, when they want and how to anticipate the next vowel sounds because as I learned tonight when you say 'bee' and 'boy' they are both the 'b' sound but your lips are in totally different positions...how do any of us learn to talk in the first place there are just way too many rules!

On to more exciting stuff to discuss...Aaron's surprise birthday party...he doesn't actually read the blog so we should be safe! If not I guess the surprise will be mine! This shindig is almost like planning a whole big wedding reception, we're renting the Mac.Town hall's banquet room and hiring a DJ and doing appetizers and snacks, I still need to get the liquor license....doesn't it sound like a wedding to you?!? The party didn't start out so huge! I'm planning on about 75 people so our house just wouldn't do because Aaron's a March baby and we can't use the backyard/deck, so that's where the hall came in, and then I got to thinking of have games tournaments or something but that's too much organizing (even for me) so then I thought of just having a dance, then you need to provide food to help absorb the booze and so on and so forth...so I think we're having us a huge celebration. And yes, it will be another theme party, and considering we're holding it a week early on St. Patrick's Day (to really surprise him/hall was booked for the 24th) , I'm thinking it'll have to be a green and gold theme of some sort...I'm open to suggestions...just wearing green and gold seems a little too easy...wish me luck...I'm sure this will be the topic of many a blog to come!

Shopping at Costco

Apparently the Christmas season is the time to shop at Costco! I left my house at 7:00 and was home at 8:10, that must be a new record! There weren't very many people there at all, I think I only waited in line for five minutes. I did get the jumbo bag of meatballs (you're welcome Aaron) but they didn't have any more cases of gourment hot chocolate so it looks like I'm out of luck. We'd bought two cases already but split them up between Joey's bus people. So it's now 9:02, the boys are sleeping, Aaron folded my laundry and cleaned the floors while I was gone, what's left for me to do? Oh I know, an uninterrupted soak in the tub...doesn't happen often enough!
And for those of you wondering, we never did find the diamond so Dad worked his magic and got a deal on a replacement stone from his new best friend at the Morinville Jewellry Store.

I'm on top of things once again!

Little Miss Organization is back in the game! I have Joey's invites sent out and his parties are planned, Friday he'll celebrate with the dayhome kids in the afternoon, family in the evening and then at school on the following Monday. The poor kid will hate cake by the time Monday rolls around. Yeah right! I have also planned and sent out my invites to the 1st Annual Beck Cookie Exchange. I've decided to pull out all the stoppers and just go for it! I usually do some exchanges over the holidays, this just includes a few more gals and is all at one time. (Mom you may need to bring down some more wine next week, ha ha) So, after I planned everything Aaron asked me what kind of cookie am I making...well I never really thought about it that much so now I've got to go through my trusty little recipe box consult Tina and Kathryn who swapped with me last year and find out what was a hit and what was a miss...

Mondays suck!

For no particular reason other than it means there are four more days after today before we can relax again!

The rest of our weekend was pretty uneventful, Aaron, Dad and Shawn partied until early evening and Aaron was in bed at 5:30, Dad at 7:30 and Shawn's wife picked him up at 6:30 (God bless you Tammy!) So, I had the boys in bed by 8:00 and Mom and I just hung out, watched TV, played Scrabble and enjoyed the quiet for once!

There was no sign of the missing diamond, we searched until we got frustrated and bored so it's off to the jeweller's to see how much it'll take to replace the diamond. Poor Aaron...he's not budging on the bigger diamond idea either...poor Les...

Aaron had today off so he picked up Joey from school and took him Christmas shopping at Toys R Us and out for lunch. Joey was soooooooo excited until he realized that he couldn't play with all of these cool toys when he got home. We got shopping done for the boys' cousins, friends and godparents now it's just the grandparents, aunts,uncles and the boys....and Joey's teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, educational assistant, and his morning bus driver, and his morning bus aide, and his afternoon bus driver, and his afternoon bus aide...can you tell how thrilled I am? Oh well, the way Aaron sees it is that if you keep them happy they'll keep Joey happy. Joey has a 90 minute bus ride each way and he's the first one to picked up in the morning, and I tell ya, he has those ladies wrapped around his little finger. Darlene has his favourite toys in a basket under his seat, and a Spiderman poster taped to the window for him. They are fabulous! Without them I don't think he'd be too pleased to get on the bus at 7 o'clock! So, what should I buy for all 8 of Joey's helpers? Chocolates? Starbucks $?

What busy boys we've got!

We left Thursday at 5:32 and they haven't stopped since! The drive was pretty uneventful, Alex snoozed while Joey stayed awake and watched Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. I packed only the old movies because I was tired of listening to Spiderman, Batman, Superman and of course Pingu! The boys ran around like a couple of crazies for a couple hours after we arrived and then they hit the wall and passed out. (Thank God for small miracles!) We were up bright and early at 6:20 Friday morning ready to start our big adventure of the day. Everyone got bundled up for the Remembrance Day ceremony and the guys went one way and the boys went the other way so Mom and I took Joey and Alex to the playground where they made a couple of new friends. One of the boys tried to follow us home afterwards...creepy...so, we hit Old Navy in the afternoon and bought the boys lined jeans, lined pants, two pairs of track pants each and 2 diaper shirts for Alex, two shirts for Joey and a sweater for Joey and we only spent $162.11. I don't think I could get that at WalMart for any cheaper! You gotta love Old Navy! It was actually the first time Aaron had ever been and I had to hold him back from adding more to the cart! He' s a bargain shopper at heart. You know how things all happen in three's ?!? well here's yesterday's disasters... (1) Dad shatters a corelle plate while making breakfast and we ended up throwing a lot out because there was shards everywhere, Corelle doesn't chip or anything but if you get the right angle it'll explode! (2) Aaron was refilling the fridge with Coke and one exploded (only Aaron could break an unopened Coke ) (3) And lastly I was proudly wearing my brand new, only had it for 18 hours, new 3 band diamond ring when, oops, one of the five diamonds was missing! AAAAAAAH! That was Aaron screaming, not me, so we searched on hands and knees with the flashlights, vacuumed and sifted through the bag...and it's gone. So, now we have to get that replaced/fixed...although it's prime time to upgrade to a bigger center diamond...right Aaron???Needless to say Dad and Aaron met up with their buddy to go wallow Aaron's sorrows in beer at "The Zoo" and try and win some meat for supper. Hopefully the rest of the weekend will be uneventful!

Twenty hours and counting...

Not that I'm anxious to get out of the city but only twenty more hours to go...the boys are pretty excited to visit Nannie and Papa so it's hard not to get a wee bit excited too! Joey's not even in bed yet, which isn't a good thing considering it is a school night and all. It's lucky for him that tomorrow is dance class so he can just follow along. He's getting quite the dance moves! Tonight while trying to put him to bed he acted out Dr. Seuss's Ten Apples Up On Top. In one word, it was hilarious! He puts his hands on his hips to show the mad puppy and then skips when the puppy skips and pretends to put apples on his head. What a funny boy we've got! Today was an outdoor day today, the kids and I walked to the Town Hall to meet one of their playmates and his mom for a visit, they played in the cold for over an hour and then we had to take the lonnnnnnnnnng way home and stop at the park close to our house because the first park didn't have swings. Well let me tell you the kids that napped had no problem falling asleep! Poor Ben just about fell asleep in his lunch! They have officially started Christmas decorating in the neighbourhood, last night they had the trees in the park all lit up. I think if it's nice out on Monday Aaron will be putting up our lights. Hope everyone has a great weekend! We're hoping for good weather on Remembrance Day so the boys don't freeze outside at the ceremony! But we'll take what we can get! Last year in minus 20 weather Papa and Joey bundled up (Joey actually wore a toque and a balaklava and his hood and a scarf tied around the works, it was so funny) and they snowblowed Mom and Dad's driveway, and both their neighbours and in front of everyone's houses! Even the cold won't keep my two boys indoors!

Christmas is creeping up slowly but surely!

Well Christmas cards are pretty much done, they're just awaiting pictures of the boys which we have yet to get done, and they're good to go...maybe I should wait until at least December 1st before mailing. Which brings me to my first question: When are you 'supposed' to start decorating for the holidays? I seem to put it off until a week or two before Christmas and then take down before New Year's. Is this the norm? And secondly I'm contemplating the doing the first annual Beck Cookie Exchange this year. I usually do one every year but I thought of doing the big grandioso (is that a real word?) thing where all the ladies come over on the same night and we have cocktails and snacks and play silly games and then do the exchange. Typically in the earlier years the ladies just drop off the cookies and I re-distribute to everyone. So......here's the second question.....when do you do the cookie exchange, one week before Christmas? two weeks? three weeks? I think the earlier the better because the closer to Christmas the busier you are, but then the earlier you do it you'd have to freeze your cookies and fresh is best...on the other hand the big variety also offsets the downside of frozen cookies. I'm sure you all think I need to get a life (I agree) but please post your answers to my dilemma!
I received our invite to Brooklyn's 3rd birthday party which reminds me that I have not planned Joey's yet...Aaron's having a schedule change at work and potentially could work that weekend which forces us to do an evening soiree on the Saturday because Grey Cup is the following Sunday and we don't want to have a football/beer/nacho party for Joey!
I suppose little miss organization needs to get her butt in gear and finish/start planning!

Zoo Day

This is probably the closest Aaron will get to a deer this season. Just kidding Aaron!  We actually have moose from '03 and deer from '04 so I think besides Aaron missing out on the "thrill of the hunt" we're good for meat.  This year we're buying 1/2 a cow from Auntie Glenda, that should pretty much fill the freezer, now if only our chicken connection hadn't have changed trucking routes...way to go Steve...Anyways, yesterday was Zoo Day at the Beck household, it was only about -1 so we only walked around for a couple hours but we still had a good time!  The boys got to feed the ducks, usually there's a tonne of people crowded around there but lucky for us there were only about twenty cars in the entire lot, so we kind of had the run of the zoo.  The boys were in their glory!  Yesterday was also haircut day for the boys, Joey got the professional haircut while Alex got the "homemade, give it a few days and it'll look okay" haircut.  Their hair grows so fast they need it cut every 6 weeks and at $15 a pop, I'll cheap out as long as I can, Joey's in school though so I can't have him looking dorky!  We're off to Mom's Thursday night and although we'd planned to just hang out all weekend, it's already progressed to the Remembrance Day Parade/Ceremony, shopping at Old Navy for my growing Joey, and the Zoo for Aaron and Dad.  Other than that I'm sure we'll hit the local parks with the boys and take it from there.  I can't wait!  Now I must run and get dinner planned and prepped for tonight, Aaron's working a bit late and I have a dentist app't at 6 so Auntie Heather is the lucky candidate to babysit for the boys.  The kids love hanging out with her so it's easier on me to leave without them crying, cooking dinner for one more is a small price to pay for good help! Tee hee!

Could a guy still go under pressure?

This was too funny! I thought we'd share it with everyone! Hope everyone is having a better than weekend than we are, Aaron's working and the boys are so cranky.  We were going for a walk and Alex wouldn't stick with us and Joey wanted to be carried, so it was a short walk needless to say.  Aaron's off tomorrow so we're hoping to hit the zoo for a couple hours.  Maybe Aaron'll get lucky and see some animals mating.  LOL! He picked up a Ford F150 quad cab yesterday morning as our courtesy vehicle while the rustbucket is being repaired.  Aaron does drive a Ford F150 with the four doors but the back door is like a 1/2 door that pulls open only when the front door is open, but now he's thinking he may have to get the full four doors because it's way easier getting the kids in and out.  My argument is that we've got the minivan as the kids main mode of transport so why get a bigger truck just for that...but you know what guys are like...bigger, better, faster, more power...we're supposed to get the van back by Tuesday just in time for the next road trip north on Thursday!  Without the movies I don't think we'd survive!

Honey you picked the wrong school!

Well it was another interesting fact-filled parent seminar at Joey's school tonight and it almost turned into a cat fight! Meeeeeeeeeeeow! For those of you who don't know, Joey goes to a school designed to help children with certain developmental delays/physical delays as well as offering programs for the "typical/average" child. So, tonight's topics were about self-help/vocabulary building which was interesting but not as useful as I hoped, Joey's pretty independant and has been potty trained for just about a year now and he can feed/dress himself. I was hoping for some good word bank ideas for Joey. Anyways...at the q&a at the end of the seminar this one lady actually had the balls to complain that her child was saying "I want apple juice", so I said that's great, and this lady went on for a good ten minutes about how the centre should be teaching her son to say "May I have more apple juice please?" Come on lady give me a break! Most of these parents are teary eyed when they hear their child communicate in a four word sentence. I know I was totally impressed with Joey yesterday when he went up to Alex and said "nice shirt Alex, Batman looks cool" His words were clear and precise, I was wishing I had the videocamera on hand so I could show everyone I know! So the rest of us parents pretty much told this lady to send her wonder child to the Montessourai Academy with the other gifted children if that's her expectations. And then another lady droned on forever it seemed about her son playing with his "you know" instead of peeing...all kids do it, it's a fact of self discovery but do you think she'd let it go.....no......she wanted to know how many minutes is acceptable...at what age is it not appropriate...There are some pretty wacko parents at this school! And I think we all attended the same meeting tonight! Eek, does that put me in the psycho category as well?!?
On a happier note Dad should be home in about four hours.....yippee.....I know the boys are excited to talk to Papa.......well I guess we are too! I think Dad needs to have his own blog, he has so many stories about his worldly travels...

The World From Joey's Viewpoint

Here are Joey's latest photos, it's funny to see the things he thinks are interesting.  He also took a shot of Baby Anna's pink boot in the middle of the carpet.  He's an artist at heart.  For those not in the direct loop Dad's en route back to Morinville a week ahead of schedule.  What a great surprise!  But that's Dad for you, he aims to please and now he'll be all switched around time-wise before we come up next Thursday and if not he can keep the kids company in case they can't sleep either.  It's win-win for me though!

Metro Ford Sucks!

Well the van saga continues...what happened was that Aaron was detailing the van and found rust starting on the drivers side door. Now, the van is not even two years old so that shouldn't happen we bought the rust protection so we thought we're covered...Well we are but we definitely have had to fight for it. We brought the van in for the service manager to inspect it and he agreed that there is rust there that shouldn't be so Ford Canada will fix it because it's a manufacturing defect. So, we thought they should give us a rental vehicle because they'll have the van on Friday until at least Monday. They thought about it and kepting talking to different department managers before giving us the executive decision that they will give us $13/day credit to put towards a $40/day car rental and eek...they mentioned a sub-compact. Come on Ford give me a break! We shelled out the extra $2000 for this "extra protection" and we get the shaft?!? Well, my mom would be so proud of me! I got out the fine print and we called the Ford Consumer Relations or whatever they're called and read to them the Extended Service Plan fine print which clearly states that warranty issues will include a rental or up to $35/day for 10 days to offset our out of pocket expense. They agreed with us that it's totally covered by warranty so Aaron had the distinct pleasure of calling Metro Ford and telling them what their Head Office said. I think besides the fact that Star Wars came out today, that was the highlight of Aaron's day!

Repost of Halloween Pictures

I'm not sure what happened to the other pictures so I thought we'd better try it again...