Davey learns a new skill!

Jade likes to play on CBC Kid's preschool page online. Davey has seen her do it a few times and this weekend asked to learn how to use the site too. This morning he had no idea how to control a mouse. By this afternoon he was using it like a pro. He can print off recipes, play games, colour pictures...amazing!

The only downside is I can tell already he'll be trying to kick me off my computer :P

On Wednesday the kids and I went to the Richmond Ikea. After a very successful trip (the kids were so good for the car ride and the shopping part!) we stopped at the new South Surrey Home Depot on the way home. The kids hopped into a car shaped shopping cart and I proceeded to push them into the store. To keep things fun, I made vroom noises while I drove.

Says Davey, "Mummy, that's not what a car sounds like. It sounds like this." And he proceeded to make slightly different vrooming noises. Then he stopped for a second and continued, "You're not my favorite mummy anymore. Your car noises are too annoying."

*****

Today, we've been busy painting Elisabeth's room and putting together shelves so I can finish unpacking her books. Elisabeth was sitting on the floor singing while Andrew and I held a particularly heavy shelf against the wall to mark where we wanted to hang it. I decided to sing along with Tink.

"I no want you, mummy." Which means, stop singing.

"But I want to sing."

"I want a monster to eat you."

okay then.

The Week In Review

This week has gone by in a blur. I know I worked on Monday. I know we had company for dinner on Wednesday. Almost everything else? Gone! It must have been a crazy, crazy week!

Speaking of crazy, here's Elisabeth with long, curly, pink hair!

These two kids look so tired in this picture! I can't remember if it's legitimate or if I'm just a bad mom. So we'll go with a.

Okay, the rest of the week passed in a blur. One event this afternoon happened in slow motion...

I wasn't feeling well today, so I came home a little early and picked up the kids. They collected and put away grandma's garbage containers so I rewarded them with treat size smartie containers. In his rush to collect his, Davey totally wiped out on the driveway. We're talking falling flat on his stomach, into a hole in the driveway, shoes flying everywhere....it was brutal. Even Uncle Cody said he'd never seen a wipe out like it.

But Davey was brave and wouldn't let me check his knees and elbows. So I ran upstairs to see if Andrew was online. I barely got up the stairs and I could hear Davey making some kind of scary noises. Like crying, but the kind of crying when you can hear fear and pain at the same time. I came burning downstairs and Davey was crying, smartie guts streaming from his mouth and blue everywhere.

My first thought was that David had been hurt worse than he thought when he fell in the driveway. But then I realised that there was some blue leading up David's nostril. Hmn.

"David, did you put a smartie up your nose?"

Much freaking out ensued. I tried to get a better look, but all I could see was blue (and David is, I confess, a bit of a nose picker).

"Are you sure you didn't put anything up your nose?"

Several seconds, minutes? or agonized denials. "I don't know why I'm crying. Nothing is wrong!"

So I reached over, grabbed his head and twisted it into the light. WAAAAAAY up there, barely visible, was the tip of a blue smartie. "Seriously?!"

So I tried getting him to blow into a kleenex. But he was still freaking out. So we had to call Doctor Aunty to come help. Sometimes it's easier to be calm when it's not mummy trying to get the hard chocolate candy out of your nose.

It took a while, but finally we had blue AND chocolate. And I made him promise never to stick anything up there again. Or I would sew his nostrils shut!

While Kathi and I were lowering our blood pressure from that experience, this came hopping down the stairs to us...

Never a dull moment at our house!!

Later, we picked Daddy and some pancake fixings up and Elisabeth cooked dinner.


While Davey just bounced around looking cute.

Weeks and weeks ago, when we all got the latest round of the 'flu, Elisabeth began exhibiting signs of an eye infection. But, we started her on antibiotics and the symptoms went away. Then, about three days after we finished the antibiotics, the symptoms came back. So she started with eye drops. And again, the symptoms went away. She finished this round on Friday and by yesterday she was rubbing her eyes like crazy and this morning her eyes were goopy again.

Poor Elisabeth hates the eye drops. Every time I had to put them in her eyes she would sob and sob and sob. Finally, she'd compose herself and ask for some kleenex, a hug and a kiss. Somewhere in the middle she'd begin crying again and the crying would continue until she was allowed to get up from the eye drops. By the end of the week the crying had lessened, but she still needed kleenex, a hug and a kiss to get through the ordeal.

So this morning when I got her out of bed, and she wouldn't open her eyes, but kept saying, "no medicine" you would have thought I'd realise that her eyes were bothering her (and glued shut). But no, I'm a bit of a dunce. I did realise what the problem was eventually. But it was Elisabeth that came up with the cure for her eye infection.

This afternoon as Kathi was rounding the kids up to head back to her place, Elisabeth said, "Aunty, please take me to Jesus so he can give me ice cream and make my eyes better?"

This Afternoon...

After lunch, Elisabeth and I rounded up our boys and headed back to Fort Langley. Somewhere between when we left Derby Reach and Home, the weather changed and it clouded over and got even colder. But it was still a great day for a walk. There was a fence I wanted to show Andrew, so we parked near the community centre (just outside Fort Langley) and walked in. This little house is partially hidden behind some lovely trees, but isn't it a beautiful house and setting?


It's a B&B...I'd be tempted to stay there it was that cute.

Walked past a sculpture shop (I think?! Lots of garden type sculptures) and saw this. HILARIOUS! They had several of these gnomes in the store. I want one!

Actually, I think I'm going to bring in family pictures and get a gnome made of each of my family members...

We kept walking into the village. The houses in Fort Langley are beautiful. For those of you who live out of province, these are for you:



Chadya, I don't know if you still read the blog. But here is our beloved Spill the Beans. Alas, it is no more :(

Dad, you took me here for my birthday back in my university years. It was quite a gourmet place back then. Now it's the sushi iron chef restaurant that Dave took me to for this year's birthday!

We stopped at the Gelato place to try their European coffee. It was just meh. Davey enjoyed the blueberry gelato though...

I love looking in this window. I'm such a sucker for retro style toys. You couldn't get me to leave the toy shops in Switzerland last year (STILL regret not buying two of everything!)

And I definitely want one of these (I really need to get my own room that I can fill with this sort of thing!)

Davey posing by a mural he liked.

Opposite the mural.

Some really cool walking sticks.

We continued on to the river. At this point it was sunny again and quite warm.


This is where I wondered if we should be scared. A woman arrived with four of these dogs. Three she put muzzles on. And then allowed to run around freely while she finished unloading her truck. I was a little bit scared and definitely protective of the kids. Not that there was anywhere for us to go if a dog had attacked. This one came and started pushing his head into Andrew's legs and butt, and almost managed to push him over!

Luckily they left and we got back to the important business at hand.


We also collected some pine cones. Reading all those Miss Read books has made me appreciate nature collections.


And finally we stopped at the school playground for a few minutes. It clouded over again soon though.

And as we pulled out it had just started snowing. Though nothing seems to be falling here.

And this is Elisabeth's plant. She got it at Save On this morning and it has accompanied her everywhere she's gone since.

This Morning

This morning Andrew and David headed out to our church for the monthly men's breakfast. I'd talk about that, but I don't know a whole lot other than there was one other little boy (this one about 12 months old) and that Davey really enjoyed it (in fact, he wants to go again).

Meanwhile, Elisabeth and I headed out for our own adventures. We took my dad's truck so Elisabeth was able to ride up front (the air bags are deactivated when there's less than 100 pounds on the passenger seats.) Can you see how excited she was to be out with me?

After some discussion we decided to head to Derby Reach. I should interrupt myself here to say how much I love doing anything with Elisabeth. She talks absolutely non-stop, but it's so funny to listen to! I don't think I would ever tire of it. I wish I could tape it so you could hear it too. It's like a combination commentary on what she sees out the window (or from the stroller, or as she's walking) and stream of consciousness with some singing plumped in the middle. Quite hilarious.

Well, I decided to take 200th Street north (rather than our usual 208th) and I was kind of glad we did. As we got close to 96th, we could see the new Golden Ears Bridge in the distance. See?

I guess I have more of my dad in me than I like to admit, so of course we headed straight into the construction zone to see if we could get a good picture of the bridge (since it was such a beautiful day and all...)

It was a bit disconcerting because as I said, they were in full construction mode. And I didn't realise until it was too late that we had driven on to a one way road (luckily we were going the correct way hah hah hah). I had hoped to pull of the road and grab a couple of shots, but as we were right in the path of the overpass and feeders, we couldn't get a good angle. After some false starts though, we found a nice spot to get this picture:

And this one:

That part of the bridge is absolutely lovely.

Once we'd gotten those shots, we started trying to find our way out and back onto the main roads. But I had no idea how to find the one way road that led away from the construction and every road we drove onto ended in some remote part of the industrial zone or at a railway track or something like that.

That did mean that I got some decent shots of the bridge though. Isn't this crazy?

It was like a bridge from California or somewhere. So many loops and long off ramps and on ramps and who knows what. I hope that once the bridge opens they do a tour so I can figure out how to use it!!

Anyway, we eventually found our way back out and headed to Derby Reach.

We were SO happy that the threatened/promised snow didn't materialize. It was absolutely gorgeous, though frigid!

We tried going down to the water, but it was tooooooo cold. So we decided to run around the field a bit to warm up instead.

Then Elisabeth wanted to play hide and seek for a while too. Only we both had to hide so it was sort of difficult.

There was a thick frost covering everything. It was all starting to melt as we got there, and here you can see a drip falling from this roof as the sun melted it off the picnic area.


I was quite fascinated with this tree. And especially with how the silver part ends just at the end of my reach and this knobbly bark is underneath.

Elisabeth was fascinated with it too. She collected broken branches and sticks and used them to "colour" the bark. This occupied her for a good half hour.

See how deep in concentration she was?

Pausing only to select a different stick to colour with.

Or to give the tree a quick succession of hugs and kisses (she did this at least three times - SO cute!)

I got a bit bored so I took pictures of the sun. Like I said, it was such a beautiful day today.

I can't possibly be inside on a day like this. No matter how cold it is!

A stick I liked the look of.



Elisabeth playing peek-a-boo this time.


And finally it was time to leave. Of course we brought our sticks home with us.