Christmas Holidays

girls enjoyed reading books with Grandpa

     
      This year we kicked off the holidays with Laura's preschool concert, which was almost cancelled due to inclement weather. I'm really glad they didn't have to postpone it until January, it would have been really anticlimactic. Although she couldn't come, Grandma Dawn made Laura a special Christmas dress to wear, and Grandpa Dave attended and then came for a lunch visit afterward.
     On the last weekend before Christmas, we had the neighbours over for dinner, and the girls exchanged presents. I didn't make many handmade gifts this year, and subsequently was a lot less flustered and stressed than usual in the days leading up to Christmas. Josh worked until noon on Christmas Eve and then we packed everything up and headed to my mom's in the afternoon. We had our usual shrimp alfredo Christmas Eve dinner, and afterward my cousin and her daughter came for some eggnog and carolling around the piano.

Laura's Christmas dress, to match

Rachel's Christmas dress
(a hand-me-down of Laura's, made by Grandma two years ago)

     Christmas morning my sister and her fiancee came over as well as my dad and we opened stockings downstairs in front of the fire. Laura was adamant that Grandma made sure the fire was not on over night so Santa wouldn't burn himself. :)

Laura and Aunty Kaitlyn (and Pippin) with the stockings

After stockings we opened Santa gifts upstairs. Laura got the plush snow monster ("Bumble" from the Rudolph movie) she so had her heart set on, and Rachel got a Van Fleet book about cats. Laura decided last minute that Rachel should get a snow board from Santa, but luckily Aunty Kaitlyn and Krista had bought them a sled, which is pretty much as good.


After our traditional bacon and egg sandwiches (that my Grandpa always used to make for us Christmas morning) we spent the afternoon at the family cottage for the last time. Kaitlyn took Laura out to try the new sled, and explored the ice on the lake with the cousins. We played some games, and the girls had fun running around with their cousins, too. I love love love watching them play with their cousins. We had a delicious Christmas dinner with our big fam and I was so happy we decided to do it one last time. After dinner we all played charades. Such a nice last memory to have (although could have done without watching Mom act out 'cow'.) The kids all stayed up until they crashed and the adults looked through a few of the last items remaining at the cottage, trying to find keepsakes to remember our grandparents by. I must say I'm pretty sad that we won't have big dinners together like that again.

      Boxing Day morning, the got the girls to have a bath in my grandma's deep jacuzzi tub. I thought it would be fun, like swimming for them. However, Laura managed to get soap in her eye, and did not end up enjoying herself, and Rachel was not particularly interested in staying in once Laura got out. So we gathered up our beasts, children, etc, and headed to Josh's parents' house. It took us seven hours due to an unfortunate timing incident of getting caught behind plows that were not even plowing the road, but the emergency lane, going ~25km/h for two hours. Brutal. We finally arrived around dinner time, hoping to see some family, but were informed they weren't coming until later in the week, and others we were supposed to see the following day weren't going to be able visit either. A bit disappointing, but happy we were able to spend some time with the family that was there.
We played some games, as usual, (my fave) and ate way too much food, as usual. The following morning we opened more presents, and again, the girls were spoiled. One of the days Josh and I managed to sneak out for a lunch date together at a lovely new restaurant in town  - where there were no high chairs! It was so nice to be able to live life at a snail's pace while we were there. Nowhere to be or go at a certain time, all the time to spend with each other cuddled up on the couch, or play games, or go tobogganing, which we did one morning and had so much fun. 
My plans to visit my girlfriend in Ottawa on Sunday got bumped to Monday, which was the day we were planning to go home, which subsequently got bumped to today. I was so happy to be able to visit her and meet her new baby (don't know how I forgot to take pics!), but when we attempted to go home this morning, the roads were terrible and we turned around to head back at the first interchange. The visibility was extremely poor due to blowing snow/ whiteout conditions, and everyone was driving with their emergency flashers on. I had checked the road conditions before we left, and the whole way was marked as 'poor', so we figured we couldn't drive like that for seven hours and decided to stay an extra night (which was now really the second extra night). Luckily our in-laws are happy to have us back and we will attempt to head home tomorrow. I'm really glad now that Josh had the foresight to take Thursday and Friday off.

 ETA: It took 6 hours door to door to get home, no major hold ups, and roads were pretty good.

The Last Supper

 
    It has been finalized: the family cottage is sold. The closing date is only a few weeks away. We waffled  back and forth about whether our whole family would get together like we always have for our last Christmas, because there is some tension in the family about the outcome of the sale. Christmas fell during my mom's week to have the cottage, and she decided to just invite everyone anyway, and whoever wanted to come, could. And I'm so glad it worked out that way. It only ended up being my cousins and their families that came, but I think everyone there appreciated it for what it was: our last chance to get together in our favourite familiar setting all together.
It is a painful chapter to end, for sure. To me, this truly symbolizes the death of my grandpa, since this was where we always visited him. And even though he has been gone for almost three years, not even being able to go to the place that so strongly reminds me of him has a big impact. He is gone. That part of my life no longer exists, but only in memory. We spent some time late in the evening on Christmas going through more of the things, and I was able to keep a handful of items that will have special significance for me: the old costume trunk that held all the things my cousins and I used to play dress up with, a set of swords, and a globe on a stand, along with a few smaller items.
I truly hope we can arrange some sort of gathering(s) so we can still see my cousins because they are more like siblings to me.

Gingerbread Weekend 2013

     I have started running out of creative juice for coming up with gingerbread structure ideas this year. I decided to ask facebook friends, and we received lots of good suggestions:

• The ice castle from Frozen
• Christmas pirate ship
• a replica of your neighbourhood or one of the girl's favourite places
• Santa's village
  New York skyline
  Paris in winter
• Farm (x2)
  Castle
• Brothel
• Whoville (x2)
• There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
• A windmill (old dutch style, not modern) that actually turns! I'm sure josh could figure it out.
• Hogwarts
• School house
• 
  

     We decided since Rache was at the 'barnyard animal learning' phase in life, we'd go with the farm suggestion. My mom even had this cute little cast iron mold to make gingerbread animals that used to be my grandma's.

One Year

      It was brought to my attention this morning that it has been one year since I lost my sweet baby and almost died. (I thought it was tomorrow. Fail.)
     I have been thinking about this day all week, actually, and didn't have any plans in mind as to how to spend it other than to take it as it came (and I was hoping to give blood, but am not well enough at the moment). I feel as though I have spent the majority of my grieving over the last year about myself and the loss of my fertility. But today, it suddenly seems to matter so much less, and I am able to focus on the loss of our sweet angel(s) more acutely. As today passed, I realized it might be helpful for us all to have a tradition to maintain the memories of our lost angels, and to prevent the story from fading into the background. It is a defining part of me now, and I don't want to forget it, though it is painful. I want our family to honour their lost siblings, and I don't want to 'hide' miscarriage. It is a very real and prevalent issue, though seldom discussed. I wish I had thought it through more before today and come up with something meaningful to commemorate our babies. On their due date we lit two candles, and I will probably continue to do that, but I would like to do something a little more, today. For now I have thought of making a wreath with our memorabilia to hang on the front door for the duration of the time I was pregnant with them (first week of October until week of December 13th), or it has been suggested to me to make an angel for the top of our tree to symbolize their spiritual status. Ideally I was hoping for something active that we could all participate in each year, though. I plan to donate blood every year now on (or around) this day (and probably more in between, since I have a pretty big debt to pay back to the donor bank), but again, that's not something we can do as a family. I'm taking suggestions...

Laura-isms II

~ Summer 2013 ~

• "That's a dead end! If we go down there we might die!" said Laura when we were out for a family bike ride.
  
• Laura had been complaining her foot was hurting her on and off throughout the day. At bedtime she said it was still hurting. I asked her where it was hurting; she said the whole thing. I asked her, "What kind of hurting is it?" She said, "A tiger."
  
• Laura's current favourite book is A Fish Out of Water. She likes to have it read to her almost daily, and she likes to sit and flip through the pages, retelling as many details as she can remember. Today she was flipping through it and on the page where the boy feeds the fish all the food in the box, she muses, "Mom... did you guys do that to Willow?"
  
• Laura crawled into bed with us one morning and was examining some pajama pants in Josh's drawer of his bedside table. She says, "Hey - there's some letters on your pants! It says 'pants'!" (She was referring to the label, which said 'Old Navy'.)
  
• Playing outside, Laura is investigating the sap on the pine tree. Josh takes her in to wash her hands. She comes back out and says, "Mommy, I'm not going to get that peanut butter on my hands anymore."

 ~ Spring 2013 ~

• While coming back from the store (where we bought chocolate), Laura says, "I want some chocolate!" I reply, "Well, we are going home to make dinner, so maybe you can have one after that."
  "I'm going to spill my dinner out of my bowl all over the floor - then I can have a chocolate. Does that sound like a good deal?"
  
• While talking about the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, Laura says, "Fee Fi Fo Fum! I smell the bum of a boy!"
  
• Laura, would you like a cheese bun?" "Yes! I love cheese bums!"
  
• Laura started gymnastics, and her coach was a man who was bald. When we were at Easter dinner, we were telling everyone about Laura's new lessons, and she said, "Yeah, and my teacher has a ball on him head!"
  
• Daddy was walking Laura on the ceiling and told her she was kinda like Spiderman. When he put her down, she farted and said, "Oops, Spiderman pooped a little."
  
• While at the grocery store, Laura was banished to the car for repeatedly bugging her sister. A lady we knew at the store gave Laura an apple on the way out, so she sat in the car with Josh and ate her apple. When I came out with the groceries, Josh opened Laura's door to put them in the car, and she dropped (/ threw?) her half-eaten apple on the ground. She then proceeded to whine incessantly about how she wanted her apple back. Josh said, "Well then, you shouldn't have thrown it out the door!" To which she replied, "Well then, you shouldn't have opened the door!"
  
• "I'm a bird! COCK COCK COCK!"

~ Winter 2013 ~

• After tripping over Chester and crashing to the floor, Laura shed some tears. Shortly after, she decided she wanted another bite of her breakfast and said, drying her eyes, "I don't want these drips anymore."
  
• After Laura uses the toilet, I often remark, "P. U.!" (as in it stinks). Today I came in when she was done, and she replied, "P. Me!"
  
• While stalling at bedtime, Laura asks Daddy, "What's that?" pointing to some mundane thing in her room that she obviously knew what it was. Daddy obliges and answers her anyway. Laura again asks, "What's that?" about something else she obviously knows. Daddy replies. Laura asks, "What's... everything in the house?" 
  
• When we were driving past the pool one day, Laura said, "Remember when we went swimming there with Daddy and Rachel and you? I was wearing a baby suit, and you were wearing a mommy suit, and Daddy had a daddy suit!"
  
• I want to dress up like a fire human!
  
• Me: Wow, Laura, that's a big poop!
  Laura: It's like a crocodile!
  
• Laura, on the way to the in-laws for Christmas (a 5-hour drive): "I'm full of driving"
  (to be fair, we had been in the car about 4.5 hours by that point)

What Happened to PB&J?

Remember the good old days when kids just ate simple things like peanut butter and jam sandwiches? Sigh.

     We are in the midst of the picky-eating toddler antics right now, but part of me is not convinced that it is merely due to pickiness. Rachel has always been my great eater, but for the past several months she has been seemingly inexplicably fussy. At first I thought it was just due to teething, and it may have been that, in part. But more and more I am wondering if the foods she eats are playing a role in her seeming personality change. She was such an easygoing baby, but since she turned a year she has been much less easy going. We already know she cannot tolerate milk (but other dairy products seem less bothersome) and if she eats processed tomato products (spaghetti sauce, etc) she wakes up and screams for hours on end during the night. I mentioned my concerns at Rachel's 18 month check up this week, but our doctor just said to not give her things that seem to upset her and the rest is probably just her being picky. Not being completely satisfied with that, I followed up with our naturopath today. She said they don't usually test for food allergies/ intolerances in children younger than two, but set us up with an elimination diet to see if Rachel felt any better.
So, for the next three weeks, Rachel will not be having dairy products of any kind, gluten, corn, eggs, or any of the nightshades: tomato, potato, eggplant, or peppers. Doesn't leave us with a whole lot.

Tonight I made homemade granola bars and also chia pudding. Hoping she enjoys them when she tries them in the morning. :)

Picky toddler Laura got a whole host of creative concoctions, as well, but with much less stipulations. The only stipulation with her was: more calories! I found this list of things I used to make for Laura saved, and thought it was interesting how it compared. :)

• smoked corn & roasted sweet potato puree
• sweet beet pancakes with honey cream cheese
• homemade granola with organic yogurt
• barbecued chicken pureed with cream cheese and salsa
• creamy garlic seafood puree
• cedar-roasted salmon pureed with cream cheese
• avocado & mango pureed with lime 
• roasted peach & butternut squash pureed with cinnamon
• steamed salmon & asparagus pureed with hollandaise sauce
• mashed potato & squash with coconut milk
• watermelon sorbet

     Rachel could probably only eat about two or three of the things off this list.

I'm hoping we get some answers from this elimination diet, and I hope that Rachel really isn't in chronic pain from the current foods she eats. It's so hard to tell when she doesn't have the language to tell us what's going on. :/

Rachel: 16 - 18 Months

By 16 months:

• she has a very good receptive vocabulary
• had her first night without mom and dad while we were at my cousin's wedding
• becoming a picky-eating toddler, doesn't like to eat much for dinner anymore
• she has developed quite a mind of her own! The tantrums!
• we have weaned her off of bottle-to-sleep. She gets a bottle after dinner, but not in her bed with her.
• she is obsessed with picking things up and/or carrying things around, the bathroom/ kitchen stools mostly. Then when she puts them down they end up on her toes and she cries.
• she has found a love for SHOES!

By 17 months:

• says 'NO' to EVERY question she is asked
• she's got the beats! she loves to dance/ bop along to EVERYTHING, including the beeping of the oven at Timmies
• she has been teething quite a bit, and now molars have made for a very grumpy Rachel!
• she brings me a book and climbs on my lap
• really communicating well with (single) words (down, done, etc)
• has finally been weaned off of formula, but seems to have an intolerance to cow's milk, so she gets an almond and coconut milk blend now.
• has learned to play peekaboo in the curtains
• she has started playing with Laura
• realized object permanence of my boobs and goes looking for them in my shirt
  (given the rocky nature of our breastfeeding relationship, I secretly love that she is seeking them out)
• dropped bedtime nursing. We're working on having milk with dinner instead of at bedtime. Generally only nursing in the morning and at nap time now.
• has over 60 words, but is starting to repeat back pretty much everything we say now.
• finally has beginnings of a relationship with a lovey - her pink blanket knitted by Aunt Judy :)

by 18 months:

• we took the side off her crib to make it into a toddler bed for fear that she would climb/ fall out.
• she has become a grazer. She hates dinner and seems to rely on her nightly bottle to fill her up in the evenings. :/
• loves cleaning up :). She even makes messes just so she can clean them up.
• calls Josh by name hahaha
• uses three- and four-word sentences to communicate her wishes.
• swims on her own with water wings! She also really loves the water slide at the pool, as soon as we get to the bottom she demands "gain! gain!"
•  developed a love for stacking cups/ toys. I've never seen her focus for so long on one activity.
•  I think she might be ready for potty training, physically, at least. We are going to give it a go next time we have three days in a row at home, and see if she takes. 
• she nurses only 1 or 2 times a day. But since dropping other feedings she has become much more interested in her morning feed (also probably because she is starving since she never eats her dinner), and all but throws herself at me when I come in in the morning. We have taken to nursing on the floor because she is getting too big/ wiggly for my lap. I am so happy we made it to my (revised) goal after we struggled so long. I would still love to make it until 2 with her, but we will take it one day at a time. Right now, I am very happy with our accomplishment. 

Can't believe we have a little toddler now!

Happy Hallowe'en!

      A month or two ago, I asked Laura what she wanted to be for Halloween this year. She immediately replied, "Peter Pan!" Okay, easy enough! And we already had a Tinkerbell costume my mom had made for Laura when she was two, so that would be an easy fix for Rachel. I was even pretty sure I could convince Josh to dress up like Hook to take them trick or treating. :)
     We made a trip to the thrift store earlier this month and got a green shirt to cut up for Laura, some green pants that I took in to make into leggings (couldn't find any already-made green leggings), and a red robe and pirate hat for Josh. I also bought some green felt to make a hat for Laura and some feathers. I had to take in Rachel's Tinkerbell get up a bit since it was size ~24 months, but other than that, this year's costumes weren't too much work.
      We spent some time 'afterschooling' about pumpkins and Halloween this week and last, and also borrowed several Halloween-y books from the library. We made hand print spiders and foot print ghosts on a crafty play date, and used them to complete our decorations. Rachel really enjoyed making them and kept asking to do more.

      Instead of doing the whole day trip to the farm with all the wagon rides, etc, we opted just to go to the market and pick some out. This past weekend it was a bit rainy and cold, and we are all already sick, so it didn't seem worth the money and effort to spend the whole day at the farm to get pumpkins, even though we really enjoyed ourselves doing that last year. We'll try again next year. The girls had fun picking out their pumpkins at the market, anyway, and still got to do a few fun things there. I always like to coordinate our pumpkin carving to match our costume theme, because I'm Type A, so this year I wanted to do Peter Pan and Tinkerbell pumpkins. Laura also decided she wanted to make a 'Bogey Bill' pumpkin (a goblin from a story we had been reading).
     Yesterday evening we had Josh's friend over for our pumpkin carving evening. We spent a good four hours with our three pumpkins, and watched 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".

The girls' picks

I thought it would be cool to try a different technique this year, so instead of a Peter Pan portrait, we opted for Peter and the Darling children on the Big Ben clock on their way to Never Land. Josh, as usual, did a great job, IMO. :)

We also did a Tinkerbell

And, of course, Laura's Bogey Bill

And here are the photos of our adorable little trick or treaters this year! <3

Peter Pan

Tinkerbell

Peter Pan fighting Hook

Spent the rainy afternoon today making this ship to go over the wagon for something to do

Laura and Rachel's friends joined us for trick or treating
Peter Pan, Princess Lady Bug, Cow, and Tinkerbell

     It was really fun seeing how into Halloween Rachel was this year. From the crafts, to cleaning out pumpkins, to posing for pictures, to handing out treats, to trick or treating and eating her treats! It's all so novel when you are one. Laura enjoyed it, too, of course, but Rachel was especially into everything, and it's just so neat seeing it through new eyes again. :)

Happy Hallowe'en!

A Halloweeny Tale

     Tonight in the car on the way home from my mom's, Laura and I made up a story, as we do from time to time. I have always meant to write them down, because I think they are awesome, so I am doing that now. :) (Plot points written in purple were Laura's contributions.)

      Once upon a time there was a boy named John. He loved Halloween. He loved dressing up, he loved trick or treating and seeing all the houses decorated, and he loved getting candy! One day a few days before Halloween, John heard some older boys talking after school about a spooky spot in the woods that they wanted to visit on Halloween. Since John loved Halloween so much, he thought that sounded fun and secretly wanted to tag along. On the day of Halloween, John decided to sneakily follow the older boys home from school so he could then follow them into the forest. He sat behind a bush on their lawn after school, waiting and waiting for them to go into the woods. Finally they came out when it was starting to get dark out and John followed them into the woods. He hid behind trees and kept himself unnoticed. They walked and walked until they got to a spooky old house in the middle of the woods. All of the boys went into the house and John followed. Then the door closed behind them - all by itself. It was very dusty and full of cobwebs, and all around very creepy. Suddenly something crashed through the ceiling! It was a small man with grey skin and pointy ears named Bogey Bill! The boys were so scared they all ran out of the house screaming and screaming, running all the way back to the edge of the woods. It was only then that they noticed John was with them. "Who are you?" they asked. He told them his name was John. They asked him where he came from, and he told them that he had followed them into the woods because he wanted to see the spooky place. They were all so scared by their experience they decided not to go out trick or treating that night. Instead they called the Ghostbusters. They explained to them what happened and the Ghostbusters agreed to come and check it out. When they arrived at the boys' house, the boys told them the way to get to the spooky abandoned house in the forest. The Ghostbusters did not think they would be able to find their way as it was completely dark out by now. They boys did not want to go with the Ghostbusters because they were too scared! But, they had to go with them, so they all went into the spooky woods, with only one flashlight between them all and it was very scary. The flashlight cast shadows behind the trees, and as they were walking, the boys heard a 'pssssshhhh' sound. It frightened them and they asked the Ghostbusters if they heard it. They didn't. A few minutes later they heard it again. They were discussing with the Ghostbusters whether or not they heard it this time when all of a sudden the goblin popped down from a tree right in front of them, "BBBBBLLLLEEEEHHHHHHH!" They were all startled and very scared, but the Ghostbusters quickly sucked Bogey Bill up into their backpacks. They decided to continue on and check out the spooky house still in case there were any more. When they went in, they found four more goblins! The Ghostbusters quickly sucked them all up. They finally thought they had them all, until they tried to leave. They found one more goblin who had cast a spell on the house that locked all the doors and windows, trapping all the boys and the Ghostbusters inside! There was no way out! The Ghostbusters quickly thought to climb out the hole in the ceiling and climbed down some rocks at the back of the house. They made their way back out of the woods, but there were still two more goblins loose in the woods!
* at this point, Laura pretty much took over the story and it stopped making much sense, so I will just choose my favourite from the several endings she provided*
The Ghostbusters then found a boy named Tico, from Emporer ['s New Groove], and he was so scared by the goblins that he cried, so they picked him up and rocked him and sang 'Baby Mine'.THE END.

Little Miss Independence

    Laura has been making leaps and bounds in the last while in doing things for herself. She started by taking initiative in feeding herself more often in the last few months, and has gradually been doing more and more. All summer she has been able to open the door and let herself outside. This also means she can let the dogs in and out. Luckily, she knows that she and they are not to go out front, and generally would just open the door to the (fully fenced) back yard to play. She can put on/ take off most of her own shoes now, and takes off her coat (zippers, snaps, or velcro) by herself, as well. She is now happy to use the washroom on her own, although we still have to help from time to time. She has also recently started getting her own vitamin in the morning. This alarmed me at first that she could even open the supposedly child proof bottle, but she has been well conditioned that she is only allowed one vitamin per day, so didn't indulge in more. (They are put up now.) This past week she has been studiously practicing using the entertainment unit. She can turn on the whole thing, turn on the DVD player, put in a movie, and get it playing if the TV is on the right input. Today, she even got a clean sippy cup and matching lid out of the dishwasher, pulled a stool up to the counter, filled the cup with water, and screwed the lid on for herself. And then, because it was so fun, she drank it all and did it again. So, yay, right?

     Not quite.

     I was laying in bed this evening feeling rather hit-by-a-truck while Josh was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. Laura was OCDing with the entertainment unit again. Then I heard her say, "My foot hurts, I'm going to get some medicine." We have all been fighting some kind of nasty cold this week, and Laura has had the worst of it. Her Tylenol has been living on the bathroom counter. She came upstairs to the bathroom, and lo and behold, poured herself some medicine. I was completely unaware that she was capable of this, but I heard her slurping the last of it out of the medicine dispenser cup. This was when I realized that, OMG she can actually open the bottle and do this for herself now! I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom. There were sticky remains of medicine in the cup, and a little slopped on the counter. "Laura!! Did you just drink some medicine?"
"Yes."
"Josh!! Laura just drank medicine!"
*Josh runs upstairs*
"How much did you drink?"
"Two."
*... confusion about what exactly she means by 'two'*
We try to get it out of her whether she poured two cups to drink, or if she was just arbitrarily assigning random quantities. The medicine cup held up to 15mL of fluid, and the 100mL bottle that, last we could remember, was a little over half full now appeared to be only about a quarter full. So, from what I can gather, she had a maximum of about 25 - 30mL. Honestly, I don't think she had that much, though. Either way, however, I am pretty sure she definitely had more than the recommended 5mL dose for her age/ weight. Ugh. So we called Dr. Father-In-Law, who seemed to think it was dire that she possibly had 5-6 times her recommended dosage, and suggested calling Poison Control and possibly taking her the hospital to have her stomach pumped. Josh then called Poison Control, who were significantly calmer about it. They said that they would only consider taking her to the hospital if she had upwards of 50mL, and that we should just give her lots to drink and no more Tylenol in the next 24 hours. So, we forced about 400mL of liquids into her, made her eat the rest of her dinner to hopefully absorb some of it/ lessen the effects, and are hoping for the best. Ugh. Kids.

Summer Memoirs

berry picking

sleeping in undies

splashing in the kiddie pool

patio drinks

eating fruits and veggies fresh from the garden

Ceiling fans. God bless the ceiling fans!

visiting family and friends

long daylight hours

homemade (and otherwise) popsicles

overdosing on vitamin D = everybody in a good mood

playing OUTSIIIIIDE

BBQing

weddings

local, fresh food/ Farmer's Market

taking the dogs swimming at the river overflow

long weekends

using the wagon and/ or watching Laura skip down the sidewalk ahead of me

family bike rides to go get ice cream

corn on the cob

fireworks

going to the park

grubby fingers and toes

And in the blink of an eye, it's over.
Happy Equinox!

Squirrel Week

     We are still plugging along with our afterschooling, trying to follow the preschool's weekly themes. We have done a week 'About Me' and on 'Apples' since school started, and now this week, 'Squirrels'.

graphing nuts... Laura loved it!

Working on her squirrel project :)

     I actually didn't have a lot planned for our squirrel week, but we took a couple books out of the library on them. One was a combo story/ fact book, so while we were reading it, I randomly decided to get Laura to tell me her favourite thing from each page as a way of reinforcing her learning. I wrote all the things down on slips and got her to help me pick out squirrel pictures to go with them from Google images. I wrote the captions she picked out (had to prompt her to fill in some context for a few of the sentences, but they were mostly all her). She is learning to practice her writing, too, but it would have been way too much to get her to write them all, so she just wrote the title on the poster. She enjoyed using the photo cropper to cut the squirrel pics down to size (again had some help making sure they were lined up straight). Trying to organize the poster was trickier to get her involved because it was a little too much like a craft at that point (which is not her strong suit -she is so not into crafts/ design/ aesthetics). I was trying to find a balance of teaching good design yet letting her have creative input. I kept most things where she said she wanted them to go but spread one or two  out so it somewhat evenly filled the board. This project was much more 'schooly' than I ever intended to do with a three year old, but it was fun, and I think she is happy with the end result. :) I am excited for her to get to show to it to people and see how much she can actually remember and explain to them. :)

All done!

     Also, sort of related, we have decided to switch Laura back down to two days of preschool a week. I was missing her while she was away! And we are trying to save up to take the girls to Disney World for Rachel's second birthday. :)

It Still Hurts...

     Most days I am okay. Good, even. But now that several of my friends have/ are on their third child, emotions begin running deep again. In particular, those who have their third child while their eldest is still three. These families are my trigger. I still long for a three-child family, so badly some days. And for whatever reason, the very closely spaced siblings are what make me mourn our loss the most. My realistic self tries to tell this part of me that life would likely have been utter chaos for us, and not in a good way. I mean, I'm sure we would have muddled through, but it wouldn't have been pleasant. So, it seems illogical for me to feel this way. But, regardless, this is how I feel.

      Anyway, after having a rough day with yet another pregnancy announcement, I unfortunately stumbled across these absolutely gorgeous paintings. Generally, I wouldn't describe myself as an art appreciator, but these caught my eye. I followed the link to her facebook page for the one of the woman in a hospital bed. After reading the comments and interpretations of that piece, the tears began to flow once more. This piece obviously resonated the most with me and my birth experiences, and I realized how starkly contrast that piece was to most of her other home/ water birth pieces, and yet again how absolutely robbed I feel of that experience, and the potential to ever have that experience again. 

Anyway, I guess that is everything in a nut shell. Hasn't been a great night. Although, the one ray I do have is that at least now I feel like I just need to cry about these things as a form of release instead of nearly drowning in a depression type wave. I think that's a step in the right direction.

The Chop

Dear Hair,

I love you. I really do. But... you are just too much. There is too much of you. And we have been trying and trying to work out our issues together for a long time, going and getting thinned... and trimmed... and thinned some more. But you keep growing back, seemingly even thicker than before. And it just isn't working for me anymore. Now that the hot days of summer are over, and I have less of a need to throw you into a ponytail, I think, for the time being, it is best we go on a break. Perhaps after having some time apart, I will be able to reconsider our relationship.

AFTER

BEFORE

Love,

Me

Laura Love

     As of last month, Laura is three-and-a-half now. I am happy to say the Terrible Twos seem to be well behind us, and really only lasted for about the six months between two-and-a-half and three. I must say I am really really loving age three. More than I ever imagined I would. Before I had kids, I thought babies were my favourite - age one, when they start to walk and talk. And while I did quite enjoy that year with Laura, I think three has surpassed it.

• She is funny. So, so funny. She makes me laugh every day. And, she is learning to laugh at herself, too, which is awesome. 

• She doesn't need to be supervised for every second of the day, and can engross herself in play for a Mommy-can-actually-get-something-done amount of time.
• She is so easy to parent and get along with now, but not in the submissive/ obedient way you always think you want your kids to be before you have them. In the we-can-communicate-about-our-problems-and-sort-them-out-together way. Because she is definitely not submissive. And I love that about her.
   
• She has matured so much in the past few months, and is visibly learning to manage her emotions better than she ever has.
   
• Yet, she still maintains this absolutely incredible innocence. She is so beautiful. A few examples:

• While playing a game, she ends up getting all the pieces she needs first, and wins the game. But she has no concept of winning and losing. I tell her she wins because she has all the pieces. She says, "Here, let me help you." And proceeds to get me the rest of the pieces I needed.
• While walking back from the park one day, we happen upon a small clump of those little yellow flowers (birdsfoot trefoil) on someone's lawn. Laura stops to look at them, and then stand in them. "I like them," she giggles, "and they like me."
• We walked to the library almost every week this summer, and Laura loved to skip ahead of me singing, "You can run and run as fast as you can - you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

• Not only is she so beautifully innocent, she is also becoming so much fun to actually do stuff with. Like play games, or go on day trips together, or work on her workbooks, or read (she has sat through two chapter books in the last week!)
• And she is so imaginative now - she has conversations and role plays with her stuffed animals (or inanimate objects, as they may be), and her favourite thing to do is to 'talk guys' (aka she pretends to talk for one of her stuffies, and I the other) which we do every night before she falls asleep.  
• She is a wonderful and beautiful big sister now, trying to engage Rachel in play she knows Rachel is interested in, singing her songs when she is upset, and trying to help Rachel or assist me in our every day tasks. Adorable. 

She is just so lovely right now, and my love for her continues to grow deeper than I ever knew it could.

First Day of School!

Laura will be attending another year of preschool, three mornings a week for a 2.5 hour program.

First day of school dress made by Grandma

    The more I look into sending her to elementary school, the less I think that I want her to go there. I always wanted to be a Stay At Home Mom because I wanted to raise my own kids, and though I never planned to continue to stay home to homeschool, that attitude is transferring. I guess that might seem counter-intuitive since we send her to preschool, but... preschool is only a few hours a week and school is... a lot. I don't want my children's best hours spent away from home and us spending the majority of our time together rushing to get ready/ fighting/ enforcing bedtime, etc. And, more to the point, I'm not convinced school is the right place for Laura (or a lot of kids, for that matter). We haven't made up our minds one way or the other yet, so will see how this year goes, but I'm glad we took the opportunity to experiment with it before sending her to real school.

Below is an (incomplete) little tally I've been keeping about the pros and cons of homeschooling.
Feel free to weigh in.

PRO:
learn subject as interest shown, sticks better
safer
tailored learning
no schedule/ relaxed schedule
best hours of day with kids, less fighting/ rushing out door/ being on time
less sick?

CON:
socialization
immune system
variety of learning experiences
miss out on school experience in general (I loved school)
miss out on opportunities for teachers/ coaches/ others to influence positively (and negatively)

Everybody's Getting Hitched!

We attended two lovely weddings over the past two weekends - one was Josh's cousin's and one was my cousin's.

Josh's cousin's wedding was a beautiful backyard wedding at the bride's parents' house.

Laura in front of their water feature. So pretty.

Ceremony

Recessional

Our fam :)

Preschooler dance party :) <3

Laura wanted to dance with 'the princess' before we left

Burlap wreath I made them

And this weekend, we attended my beautiful cousin's lovely wedding. The girls didn't come with us, and it was our first time leaving Rachel over night - but they were both champs! Rachel had a much easier time than Laura did her first night away from us. 

Here comes the bride! (We were almost late and almost missed her!) 

Sealing the deal :) <3

Reception Room. So pretty.

Introducing the new couple. Such a pretty pretty bride.

Cousins <3

I just love weddings. Cliche, I know. What can I say? I'm a feel-good kinda girl.

Congrats to the newlyweds! Here's to happily ever after! <3