Category: Katrine

Easter Weekend Fun!

Katrine began gymnastics classes on Thursday. She had a wonderful time. They got her up on the balance beam and trampoline which she thought was fabulous. They also began to teach her how to do a cart-wheel (she has been asking for a while but neither Glenn nor I can do one). Our favourite part? She left the class exhausted and slept like a log that night!!
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On Good Friday, we went up to visit my Nana (she’s 95!). Katrine was excited as we haven’t been able to go and visit in a while as they have been under quarantine. We sat around visited and enjoyed ice cream sundaes. Much to Katrine’s delight, Nana had managed to get Katrine a small egg full of jelly beans which she devoured after polishing off her ice cream.
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Sunday morning began with Katrine searching through her Easter basket to see what the Easter bunny had brought. The fat pencils were among her favourite items. (Yes, our Easter bunny likes to bring non-candy items). Then it was time to run around the living room searching for treats which the fluffy gift-giver had hidden. Then she had to sample some with a sigh before beginning to draw with her new pencils. Next, we went to visit Glenn’s dad and mom. Katrine is feeling some Grandparent withdrawal because she hasn’t been able to see her Attwood grandparents as often due to Glenn’s dad’s surgery. Anyways, visits are a huge hit with her. She insisted on taking her Easter bunny purse and stickers as well as some “homework” as she likes to call her connect-dot-sheets. Well, she entertained everyone with her gymnastics exercises and songs. Plus, she managed to scam some chocolate off of her Grandpa. After consuming some more chocolate, it was time for turkey dinner. We were lucky enough to have Glenn’s mom join us. We were going to have gluten-free rice krispies shaped like carrots but the green gummies that we had set aside for the leaves had mysteriously vanished. Hhmmm, a hungry Easter bunny or a little girl?
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Easter basket booty

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Today, Easter Monday, Glenn had the day off and we drove out to Puck’s Farm in Nobleton for their egg hunt. It was a wee bit cold but we all needed some fresh air. She had fun looking at the baby animals and going on pony rides. However, the highlight of the day was, by far, finding the small plastic egg and then trading them in for more candy.

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Sigh, just think. This coming weekend we are having a Pirate Third Birthday Party complete with candy and a treasure hunt. I think that our family will sail through the rest of this month on a sugar high.

Muffin the bunny cake

Today Katrine and her Grandma went to Loblaws for a cake decorating class. Their assignment: to create a bunny cake. Now Katrine has been looking forward to this all week and checking her wee calendar daily so she was all set when they reached the store (once she realized that they were not there to shop that is). They had a blast making the cake. In between eating the decorations and icing Katrine finished her cake (I think that Grandma must have helped). She even gave it a name: Muffin. Upon arriving home she gleefully announced, “Okay! Let’s eat Muffin.” And that was the end of Muffin.

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The proud baker

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Actually resembles a bunny

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Muffin’s demise

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Katrine looking cute at the Maple sirop festival. This has nothing to do with Muffin but I like the photo and thought to include it!

March Break

On a highnote, we have mailed off Elspeth’s immigration package. Not that there is any rush, but it certainly makes us feel another step closer to her. The wait continues to grow and right now we are predicting that she will join our family, tentatively, in the fall of 2008.

Closer to home, we have all been off for the break. It has been nice to simply have time to spend together. Katrine stayed up at my parents over night on Sunday and did remarkably well. She is already making plans to go back up and sleep in the “big bed” (they let her sleep in a double bed so she was in heaven). What did Glenn and I do? We went out for dinner and worked on Elspeth’s immigration stuff. Oh ya, then we slept in!!!!

We went on smaller outings the rest of the week: to a Backyardigans craft session, to visit family, to the park, to meet Dora. Our biggest trips were to the zoo and the shoe museum. The zoo had various bug displays on for the break. She was fascinated by all of the creapy crawlies. We made sure to steer clear of the bug brittle table though, just in case she decided it looked good. We are all for enriching activities, but we have to draw the line somewhere. The Bata shoe museum was running a pirate program this week. We went with one of my friends from Teacher’s College and her daughter. Katrine had a blast decorating a treasure chest, playing dress-up and icing cookies. Her favourite part was the treasure hunt. She kept talking about how she is going to have one for her birthday(we are having a pirate party for her). Oh ya, she also loves her jolly roger tatto. Aside from her refusal to nap when she obviously needs to, it was fun.
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Climbing around burning off steam

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Just looking cute

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Helping to bake lemon pie

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Decorating her pirate booty

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Tomorrow it is back to work and daycare for us all. Tuesday she has her first dentist appointment. Wish us luck!

Celebrating the New Year

Let me begin by wishing everyone a happy Shrove Tuesday. We don’t actually do anything for Lent but today gives us the excuse to eat pancakes for dinner. This year we actually managed to enlist Katrine to help mix them up before swim class.

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This past weekend saw my Nana turn 95 and the arrival of the Year of the Golden Pig, which in our house has also become known as “The Year when Elspeth will likely be born…maybe”. We had dinner in Chinatown on New Year’s Eve with two other families from Katrine’s travel group. We had all gone to see the Chinese New Year children’s symphony at Roy Thompson Hall. It was not quite what we expected and Katrine was not that impressed; probably because she was required to sit still AND quietly. The only part that she truly enjoyed was when a piece was presented on traditional Chinese instruments. Then they had her full attention. The girls really enjoyed seeing each other.

Sunday was a quiet day at home full of tobogganing in the backyard, puzzles, crafts and of course Dora’s Around the World DVD (we must watch it everyday). Then we cooked Chinese food for the three of us before Katrine opened her Hong Bao. Much quieter than last year’s family banquet but more in tune with our lives over the past few months.

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Tomorrow is our 2nd Gotchaversary. It is hard to believe that two years ago today we were on the verge of meeting our little fireball. That day was certainly a blessing. Katrine has brought us a lot of laughter and joy. It has been wonderful to see how she has grown and learned these past two years. We will be going out to dinner and skating (weather permitting) to mark the occassion. Then on Saturday, we will be getting together with alot of the families who we traveled with so that the girls can play together and get re-aquainted. We will miss our families out west but we will be thinking about them.

February Fun Begins

We have had some fun mixed in between viruses. Yesterday afternoon we took Katrine out to the backyard and broke out the toboggan. As you can see, we have a MASSIVE hill leading into the yard. The perfect size for a two year old.

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In the evening we headed out to the FCC (Families with Children from China) Chinese New Year banquet. The actual new year’s eve is not until this coming Sunday but we started early. We were joined by a group of families who we traveled with which helped to make it even more special. We ate a full banquet, were entertained by singers & dancers and also a lion dance put on by some of the girls. Katrine was especially impressed by the red envelopes that she received. She told me tonight, “We eat Chinese. My tummy full. I like play my friends and see Aie’s. I get red money and chocolate.”

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Doing her own Dragon Dance

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Can you believe that she turns 3 in April?

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Welcome to February!

Two years ago this month we were packing and flying over to China for Katrine. Time flies.

The past month we have spent trying to get Katrine use to her single blade skates. It has been really fun watching her give it her all. She has no fear of falling, in fact she thinks that it is funny. More importantly though, she has no idea that learning to skate is hard work. To her it is simply another game. We have been very blessed in that. She is making remarkable progress. She is quite comfortable in her skates and is actually able to propel herself forward a little bit before falling down. She is also teaching herself how to regain her balance when she starts to fall. That is taking a bit though. She is really good at pushing off with her right foot (can you tell which is her dominant side?) so she tends to go to the side as opposed to straight but she is only two. She was impressed by how the boys playing hockey could “run” on their skates and that seems to have helped motivate her —either that or the fact that she gets to spend one on one time with mom or dad on the ice.

Enjoy the photos!

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Merry Christmas!

We have finished the last of our Christmas celebrations and I thought that it would be nice to take a moment to share some of the holiday highlights.

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Katrine visiting Santa

Our holidays began the first weekend of December with a visit to my parents in Victoria Harbour. My brother and his family were also up there so we had an early Tomlinson Christmas (complete with turkey dinner). On the Saturday night we trecked off to St. Marie among the Huron for their period celebrations. The kids got to stay up late and do crafts while walking around by candle light. One of the highlights of the evening was listening to the Native drummers. We would have stayed longer in the longhouse but it was too smoky. Sunday morning was gift day. It was nice to see all of the kids ripping paper and smiling at their various gifts.

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Sunday, December 17th was our holiday open house. It was really nice to show off our new house while having a chance to chat with friends. It also gave me an excuse to do some gluten-free baking. I am getting much better at transfering family recipes into gluten-free concoctions. Katrine had a blast running around with all of her friends. We only wish that more families had been able to join us.

Christmas Eve was a bit quieter. Glenn, Katrine and I went to visit my Nana at her nursing home and too drop off some presents for her. She surprised us by giving Katrine her stuffed puppy dog that sits by her bed. Katrine usually plays with it when we visit so she was tickled pink. My parents had driven down from the Harbour (my dad is recovering from kidney stones), and my mom joined us at church. Unfortunately, I missed a chunk of the service as I was dealing with a tantruming toddler. Oh well, maybe next year.

126 Had to show you Katrine’s Christmas dress; just in case she never wears it again.
On Christmas morning, Katrine let us sleep in until 8:00 before we journeyed downstairs to see what Santa had brought. She was still pretty calm this year because she still sees Santa as a fat, old guy who gives out candy canes if you ask nicely as opposed to the bringer of your heart’s desire. We managed to get her to eat some breakfast before we dove into the pile of gifts. We tried not to go to crazy but there still seemed to be a lot of stuff at the end of it all. After gifts Glenn and I took Katrine to visit his parents and then it was back up to the nursing home to see her Great-nana again. After the turkey and fixings we enjoyed Baby Jesus’ birthday cake. I have to tell you that Katrine actually helped to make it by pouring the various ingredients into the bowl and sprinkling the stars on top. I also have to give her the credit for thinking this tradition up. She is currently obsessed with birthdays and parties…constant topic of conversation. Well, we were trying to explain that Christmas was when Jesus was born. Then, on went the light bulb and hence the cake.

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132 Look at what Santa made for Monkey. The lengths we will go to for our kids.

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On Boxing Day the three of us drove out to the zoo and walked around for a few hours. The fresh air and exercise were great pick-me ups after all the food. In the afternoon, we headed over to Glenn’s parents for the Attwood family Christmas. More food, more family, more gifts. It was a relaxing and fun time.

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Today, the last day of Christmas, we had the Toop family Christmas(Glenn’s mom’s side of the family). It took Katrine about an hour to truly feel comfortable but then she was off and running. She really had a great time with her cousins. It is nice that she has so many cousins close to her own age.

Now we have a few days to rest before we drive back up to Victoria Harbour to celebrate New Years with my folks. We hope that all of you have had an enjoyable December.

Another long time between updates

Well I guess that moving does take a lot out of you.  We have all been feeling under the weather (I have another upper-respiratory infection) and Katrine is feeling just about as well.  We also found out that Heather had a untreated 1st degree sprain of her foot that caused much pain and a locked ankle and calf muscle… yeah we’re really healthy over here.

Things are looking up though.  We are slowly getting unpacked and we are definitely feeling settled in that we now more often call it “The House”, rather than “The New House”.  With Christmas around the corner we should have a few new postings and maybe some pictures.

Been busy…

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, we’ve been busy getting ready to move into our new house. Actually we’re getting ready to take possession of the new place and do lots of fix-ups. New windows, new and repaired flooring, and lots of painting and cleaning will be the order of the day from October 3 until we move on October 25.

In the meantime, we managed to find time to go to the Kite Festival. We really had a good time, and wore Katrine out. She did get to fly her first kite though (it didn’t stay up for long).

We were also in and out of London last Saturday for Charles’ 4th birthday. The indoor playground was a blast for the kids, and we were sure that Katrine would sleep the whole way home, but no… 15 minutes was all she needed. Of course she looked spaced anyway.

Group 268 Meeting

Welcome to the last week of August! That means school starts next week. Sigh!

This past weekend we had the chance to get together with three families in Elspeth’s group at a park in Orillia. It was a beautiful day. The adults chatted and generally got to know a bit about each other while Katrine played with one couple’s children. The highlight of her day though was definetely the train ride around the park. Especially when the train went through the tunnel.

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The past two weeks have been pretty exciting for Katrine. We bought her a three-wheel scooter last week (they were on sale). She has been practicing using it inside the house and can get some pretty good speed. Now she just needs some practice steering. When we were up at Heather’s parents, they gave Katrine a small trike with the seat all the way down. Katrine was thrilled. Since then she has been out peddling everyday. She can peddle pretty well but can’t start when fully stopped. She can steer pretty good around corners but gets distracted by the scenery on straightaways.

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