Category: Heather

Elspeth on Safari

A local mall hosted Safari Jeff again this year.  My mother in law and I decided to take Elspeth.  Nothing like seeing real animals up close to encourage more language development (oh, it is cool to see them too).  Well, we had a lot of fun.  I will let the photos tell the tale of our mall safari.

Mom, are these the only animals?  Yah know, fake bugs are the best kind.

Okay.  Me and the sheep family are ready for the show.  Bring on some animals.

She got to see this guy stick out his long tongue and eat a bug. 

Then came the super fun part – Face Painting!

Everyone else was getting butterflies, tigers or spiders.  Elspeth?  She asked for a dinosaur.  The girl had to google some suggestions but it turned out AWESOME!

Did you notice that the dinosaur opens it’s mouth whenever Elspeth does?  It was actually fun watching her eat her lunch.

Home from North Bay

After a long drive we are finally home.  The most exciting part of the drive?  Why seeing the sign for Katrine, Ontario of course?  Katrine sees her name in very few places so it is always exciting.

Have you guessed why we were all the way up north?  For skating of course.  This weekend North Bay is hosting the Make it a Date to Skate competition.  It seemed like a good idea to shake things up and get away from it for a bit so we signed up.  It was fun!  Mostly because a group of Katrine’s coaches skaters went up and we stayed together.  So it was not just about the skating but about the girls having fun.  Katrine with her friends and Elspeth playing at being a big girl.

(One of Katrine’s fellow skaters took the photos with the words.  I don’t have that kinda technology.  Looks really nice doesn’t it.  The one of my two cuties is from the pizza party last night.)

I suppose I should fill you in on the skating itself.  Katrine placed 8th for her spins (she kinda mucked one up…in that she did the wrong thing which makes it near impossible to actually win anything).  Then 2nd for elements.  Then 5th for her solo.  She was pretty happy with that place given that there were “really big girls in my group” (aka a few were at least 16).  Most important though, she was proud of her overall effort as were we.  Now a full month without competitions.  Sigh.  Notice, not without skating only no competitions.  Hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Finally, a snow day

We finally got a sizable snowfall.  🙂 The girls are loving it.  I am glad that I am still off so got to enjoy the snow instead of driving in it.  Glenn felt much the same until he had shoveled the driveway for the third time.  Well, Katrine is totally into it but poor Elspeth is a bit uncertain.  Probably due to the fact that we have gotten so much snow that she is having difficulty walking through it.  Both girls happily played and wore themselves out.  As a result, it is a quiet night in our house.  🙂

Oh ya, they also buried me in the snow.  Apparently that is really funny.  From my point of view it was quite comfy.  That is some really fluffy snow.

We thawed out by painting, making lip gloss (Christmas gift) and getting ready for Valentines Day.  Elspeth got a lot of practise printing her name.  Can’t always read it but she really tried.

 

Junior Kindergarten

Can you believe it?  This child is heading to Junior Kindergarten in the fall?  I know this for a fact because I went and registered her this morning.  Standing there filling in all of the forms I felt like turning and walking out.  I mean, how can she be ready for school when I have only held her for a year and a half?  Nevertheless, off to school she will go.

When I walked in to the main office the nice lady behind the counter looked at both girls and asked me what grade I was here to register for.  I replied JK.

“Oh, you know that children need to be born in 2009 in order to start JK this fall.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“Oh, so she was born in 2009?”

“Yep.  She is just dinky.  Probably be the smallest kid in all of JK next year.”

We celebrated Elspeth’s registration with lunch out with Glenn’s mom.  The girls adore spending time with their Grammy and she them.  Then we got stuff for the upstairs fish tank (but that is another post) before coming home to work on our dragon (yet another post).  Then I declared that I was done.  My whiplash is improving overall but as you can see I am struggling with limits.  I seem to just go and then the moment I stop is when I notice the pain.  This past weekend we were at a skating competition (yet another post) and were standing much of the day so Sunday brought quite a bit of pain.  I thought that by taking a break this afternoon I might avoid a similar fate tomorrow.  WELL…Katrine got a new make up kit from her Grammy today and while I was resting she and Elspeth, as you can see, had some fun.

Gotta love big sisters and their creativity and also little sisters and their agreeability!

Happy Robbie Burns Day

As usual, we went up to my parents this past weekend to celebrate Burns’ birthday.  Highlights:

 

1.Elspeth likes haggis. (ugh) So does Glenn but Katrine is wise and refuses to touch the stuff. 🙂

2. Both girls danced.  Unfortunately there were technical issues so we have neither photos or video of them.  Katrine did two dances and was awesome.  I have worked with Elspeth on a little routine of basic moves and between that and her overall cuteness she got some cheers and left the floor with a big smile on her face.

3. This year I managed to find Burns colouring pages and I doubt that he ever looked quite so…interesting.  Elspeth even gave him an extra ear complete with an earring.

I will end with a family photo.

Happy Birthday!

I have to admit, I love my birthday.  I also love celebrating everyone else’s birthdays too.  This past week has been a very interesting but ultimately fun birthday.  I did not have my usual skating party with friends because I am still coping with the after effects of whiplash.  I am usually good and can get through the day with the help of pain killers and caffeine (I am not sleeping so well).

We spent the first weekend of 2013 up at my parents enjoying their ample supply of snow with some snowmen, a bit of backyard sledding and Glenn & Katrine went skiing.

I was feeling a bit sad because it took all of my will power to crawl around in the snow helping to fill pails to create the snow pair and push the girls on the wee hill.  No skiing for me. :(  Well, didn’t my parents turn it around.  A special dinner, gifts and GF cake!  Who can feel down when there is cake?

My actual birthday was wonderful. I went for lunch with Elspeth and my fabulous mother in law before enjoying dinner at home.  It was great to watch how excited both of the girls were for my birthday this year.  Katrine loves celebrating things and has always been enthusiastic which is wonderful to enjoy.  Last year Elspeth watched but this year she participated.  All day she was like, “It mama birthday.  I give surprise toe nail polish.  You do my toe nails?”  Okay, she still has to work on the concept of what constitues a surprise but at least she was eager to celebrate.

The gift theme this year was chocolate (oh, and nail polish).  Mmmmm.  Chocolate tea, chocolate soap, chocolate lip gloss, chocolate coloured drapes 🙂 and of course chocolate cake.  It smellt SOOOO good.  Then to top it off the girls made cards which were adorable.  Katrine made hers pop-up while Elspeth managed to copy To mama and print the current version of her name.  I love my girls.

 

Did I mention that I got chocolate cake?  Yes?  Well this was a particularly awesome cake.  First, Glenn made it as a surprise.  Second, it has a half pound of butter and 6 eggs so that alone should make it delicious.  Third, devil’s food cake.  Fourth, it is absolutely adorable.  Glenn made me a gigantic cupcake cake.  As you can see, I could hardly wait to dig in. (Oh and my new scarf was a Mama T creation)

So here I am, 39 and proud.  I have enjoyed every year and earned every wrinkle.  I can hardly wait to see what this year will hold.

 

 

Concussion update

Okay, we went to see the neurologist last week and received some positive news.  He gave clearance for Katrine to resume skating and her full school schedule as long as she continues to besymptom free.  At the same time he had us do some blood work in case her fatigue was the result of something else.  So it briefly felt like we had returned to some sense of normal.

 

On Sunday afternoon I took thegirls skating.  Nothing new, done it many a time and it should have been plain old fun, right?  Nope.  A kid fell took me out and I smacked the back of my head on the ice really nicely.  For the past few days I have been nursing a mild concussion and a case ofwhiplash.  Just as progress was being made on feeling better ( right now I am typing while I wait for my last Advil of the day to kick in) a blood vessel in my left eye popped so I have a red eye.  Apparently that can take up to two weeks to clear so it looks like I may have some actual red eye in this year’s birthday photos.

That is about it.  Happy new year to everyofeeling soon I will postphotos of my mason jar triffle.  They worked much better than the Christmas cupcakes.

Merry Christmas to all.

We hope that you all had a wonderful day today.  It was quite a nice day here with us.  The morning began with stockings and the girls must have been very good this year because Santa delivered – Calico critter house and a new Om Nom had Elspeth smiling while Katrine was doing a happy dance over her new bedset (complete with fluffy pillows) and Moshi Monster guide.  After a delicious breakfast it was off for presents.  Elspeth did much better this year.  She gets the whole “gifts are meant to be unwrapped and hold good stuff” this year.  Two of the girls’ favourite gifts were their new glasses with their names (a big deal because you pretty much never find stuff with either Katrine or Elspeth on it).  Glenn?  Can’t you tell that he absolutely LOVED the Santa mask that Katrine made him out of pipe cleaners? :-)   Me?  A ticket to the gala performance of the WorldFigure Skating Championships for next year!!!

Once the gifts were done, the kids were pretty wired.  Left my parents and Glenn inside to work on getting the turkey in and lunch ready and went outside to play in the snow with them.  It was awesome.  Our finished product was as cute as the fake snowman one of my gifts came in.

Of course, the day ended with LOTS of food and some games as a family.