Davey

The other day David decided to pack all of Elisabeth's pull ups into a basket. Everywhere that Davey went that day, the basket was sure to go. I was upstairs folding laundry, and the kids were in the basement playing. All of a sudden he was in front of me:

"Tink needs changing."
"Oh, okay. Tell her to meet me by the kitchen and I'll change her."
He thought about it for a second. "No. You can change her in the basement, or you can bring her to the kitchen. Those are your only two choices."

I got such a kick out of that. "Those are your only two choices" isn't a phrase I've used with him, so I assume he learned it at preschool. Either way, I laughed every time I thought of it. And we both used it several times during the day. Then later I shared it with Andrew. As I shared it with Andrew, I used it in a sentence. Davey was obviously listening because he interjected: "Two bad choices are no choices at all."

Seriously, where is he coming up with this stuff?

This morning, in between registering David for Kindergarten and meeting his preschool class at Price Smart for a field trip, we stopped at Starbucks for a drink. We had our drinks in and Elisabeth was admiring all the espresso makers and assorted gear they sell. That's when I started thinking about the machine my friend Lee bought me for my birthday ten years ago this March.

It was rather an extravagant gift, so I insisted Lee keep it at his house (that was Lee all over though. His grandparents gave him $10,000 one year and he spent ALL of it buying his friends amazing Christmas presents.) I'm not sure what happened to the machine.

But I was thinking how much I loved playing with my very own espresso maker and what fun that would be again. Which is why this would make the perfect birthday gift for me this year:


Anyway, back to our day. Elisabeth is still miserable. As in, 80 % of the time that she's awake, she's grizzling, if not full on crying. Her eyes and face are swollen and I'm not sure if it's from all the crying or her cold. She's been on antibiotics for almost a full week now, so this is a bit troubling to me. I hope it's just because Andrew's been out of town all week and I've had to work two days so she's just out of sorts. She really, really does not like me working. Even when she's healthy it usually takes a day or two for her to stop being clingy and whiney after I've worked.

I knew that I had to be at David's school this morning to register for Kindergarten. But since his field trip was to a grocery store I was really undecided if we should go to that or not. I brought the stroller and talked to her before hand about how she had to ride in it and be good. She did pretty well for the first 10 minutes.

There was another younger sibling there, even younger than Elisabeth (probably 20 months old or thereabouts) who kept running away and distracting his mom. So I offered her the stroller if he would stay in it and I would carry Elisabeth since that was what she wanted anyway. And he did really well in the stroller for a good 1/2 hour. But when I noticed he was starting to get restless I offered to take it back again.

The first thing that silly sausage did was run right into the freezer (the big storage one like they keep milk/eggs in at Costco) and wrap his entire mouth around a metal shelf. I couldn't even go look. Some of the moms herded all the kids out of the freezer and around a corner so they wouldn't see anything while the lady from the store ran for warm water and the rest of the moms all breathed on the poor baby to try and loosen his mouth. The warm water did the trick, and thank God the little boy's mouth wasn't hurt. But his poor mother was crying and I was almost crying. Luckily the kids didn't really seem to know what was going on! I don't know if I'll go on that field trip again!

Anyway, now it's over and Elisabeth has had a nap. The kids have both eaten lunch and are happily colouring at their craft table in front of Flushed Away. I'm trying to decide whether to disturb them to run my errands or just let them be. So thankful Andrew will be back by tomorrow evening!

Ten days ago, on the 8th, we did some yard work:

Finally, a sunnyish weekend and time to tackle some of our yard. After about an hour working on blackberry bushes and not seeing much fruit for my labours, I decided to tackle the other corner of the yard...by the horse chestnut tree. Much better. Davey decided to try on my safety goggles (and tinker's Hello Kitty watch).

He knuckled down though soon enough. Here he is wheeling more brambles over for us to cut up and place in the recycling bags.

And here he is transporting another bag over to us. And yes, that's the Christmas tree in the background :P

We raked up all the leaves and made a huge pile. Jumped in it a few times, then raked it up again.

Then tossed it a little for good measure!

Hmn, maybe not such a good idea, that.

Still grossed out...

Tink, meanwhile, entertained herself on the play equipment.

Later, Ashlie and Jade came over. Hmn, these girls look like they were caught doing something they shouldn't have been...



SO much left to do in the yard, definitely want to get the blackberry brambles cleared before they start growing again! And that's only the first step. I think we've got our weekends scheduled for us for the next year :)

Painting the house

That's three different shades there; it's a bit hard to tell.

Valentine's Weekend

Last spring we spent almost four months fighting colds. I'm sure we weren't sick that entire time, but it sure felt like it. Doesn't it feel like 2009 is going the same way? Well, we're trusting that this is the last bout of colds for us. It started with Davey having a raging fever on Wednesday night. He missed his Valentine's party at school and that evening I took him to the walk in clinic. Strep throat. On Friday we were back with Elisabeth. I told the doctor to check me too, just in case.

We'd had plans for Valentine's Evening, but in light of 3/4 of us being sick, we decided to postpone. But we did make spinach and cheese manicotti for dinner (that's what Andrew made for me our first Valentines) and Elisabeth and I made chocolate cake.

Today Davey and Andrew were starting to get itchy feet. Since it was so nice, we decided go to Crescent Beach. It was absolutely gorgeous there.

Elisabeth lasted 20 minutes then she started falling asleep. So I put her in the stroller and went for a walk.




It was a gorgeous day, but I'm looking forward to going back as soon as we're all healthy !!

When we got home, Davey told me he wanted "lots of pictures of me" so I took him round the yard and snapped a few pictures.

Then he helped Daddy wash the car. He's good at doing the rinsing.

He can even do it backwards.

But then he squirted himself in the head. He didn't even know he was wet (it just got his hat), but he was VERY, very mad at me for laughing. I'd just finished telling him to move farther away or he'd squirt himself....

So once Andrew persuaded him not to run away from home, Davey came and told me a story about a bad mummy who laughed at her little boy, then a wolf came a long and ate her. And that's what happens to mummy's who laugh at their boys.

Ashlie had a field trip today, so Jade came over to play while Kathi was out. Then Kathi ended up being busy most of the day, so Jade stayed. After stopping for some better shoes, we wandered over to the park.

Davey is lightning quick at this now. I barely have time to snap a picture before he's across.

And even Elisabeth can do it without help. Though she prefers it if I hold her hand while she goes across.



I don't think Jade can smile pretty for the camera. She's such a little monkey!




After playing for a while, we went to the baseball stands and the kids took turns putting on shows.


Their individual styles of music are very different. I think Jade must take after her dad (think loud and very rocking!) Davey was much softer and tink is very melodic.


And then we walked home the long way. I remember doing this with Davey once...I ended up carrying him. All three kids made it at a good clip so I think from now on we'll walk instead of hopping the fence.



An unwilling huggee and a very sweet hugger.

Tinker is very happy to be standing on the counter!

CRAZY EYES!

This is Davey and Tink washing my windows. I like to let them help me clean, even if it means I often have to clean before and after they do :P

uh oh...
What's wrong tinky?

New Headboard

I've always wanted to try my hand at making a headboard. Last Saturday I did just that. And here's the finished product. I actually bought the cushions for our den, but since I won't be getting furniture for the den for ages yet, I thought they looked quite nice in our room too. Now I just need to get that picture I want for in here and hang my Sid Dickens tiles...

More Tinker!

Andrew has been sick for almost two weeks. I thought that after all this time the rest of us had escaped his miserable cold. But the kids started coming down with symptoms a couple of days ago, and today I can tell I need to up my garlic consumption considerably!

Elisabeth has the cutest little scratchy voice. But she's a trooper. She still cooked supper for us tonight.


I love this outfit. It was Jadeybug's. Ever since I put it on her this morning I've been feeling very grateful to my wonderful sister and to Tash for passing such gorgeous clothes on for Tink. Thank you!

Tink didn't want dinner. So while we ate, she wandered around upstairs. And came down looking like this. heh heh heh.

Elisabeth and I have a little routine we practice in the morning. While I'm doing my hair she comes in and works on her makeup. This morning was no different. Well, except that she asked for curlers in her hair too. Curlers on, she got started with the eyeliner (you can see it in this picture below...the pink stuff on the bottoms of her cheeks.) Then she added white eyeliner to her upper cheeks/under her eyes. Then it was time for mascara:

After each layer of goop, she would exclaim, "I look beautiful!"

Then she found some lip balm. I showed her the lipstick instead...she immediately aimed for her eyes with the lipstick, so I had to show her how to put it on...

"hmn, is it enough? A little more?..."

Fabulous!


I managed to remove about 2/3s of the makeup without her crying. The rest of it she wore all day. Luckily, I was at work so it was Andrew who had to go out and about with her.

My brother thinks Elisabeth should be a silent movie star. You can catch some of her melodrama (she's really good with the hand drama) in this picture:

Oh yeah, such a drama queen :)