Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Spies like us and word combinations

Perhaps the first rule of spying should be to not leave your spying rules laying around.  Or maybe 'the first rule of spy club is don't talk about spy club.'  

While putting something away in Ginny's room the other day, I stumbled upon her note pad.  I probably wouldn't have payed it much attention, but the top line caught my attention.  It said 'don't talk to our family.'  This piqued my curiosity enough to look a little closer.  I flipped  back one page and then it all made sense.  Ginny and CeCe like to play a spy game where they sneak around the house totally undetected and spy on people.  I use the term 'totally undetected' fairly loosely.  So here are the 10 rules for spying.  (ignore some of the phonetic spelling): 


(I'm also not sure what 'follow the blue light' refers to.)

I while back I talked about combining words to form new words, specifically coughing and farting to make foughing.  Well, this practice is kind of catching on in the house.  The other day Ginny came into the kitchen and said she was farting as she walked.  She was giggling pretty good too.  Then she paused for a minute and said, 'I was falking!'  After I suppressed my initial look of shock and awe, I told her we probably shouldn't say that one.  Perhaps warting would be better.  She preferred falking.  I thought it best to not push the point too much or she would really dig in her heels and we'd all be falked.

This practice of combining words has also spilled over to other children in the house.  We were in a store the other day looking at some toques, scarves and mittens and they had some that were combinations.  Scarves with little mitt pockets at the end became scittens.  They also had toques that had mitts attached.  Jorja declared that these were tittens.  Again, perhaps not the best way to combine those two words.  Oh well, what's a person to do?  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  Grab your tittens, we're going falking.  Later.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Skating, coloring, sledding, new toques and Christmas fun

We received some big news this week.  Huge really.  The phone rang Sunday evening and it was CeCe's skating instructor.  She told us that registration for the after Christmas session was opening this week and if we were going to register CeCe to register her in level 2.  Level 2!  How awesome and crazy is that.  All the parents got the same call and we were all equally surprised.  But the kids are all doing great and have all improved a lot since that fateful first lesson.  

Here's our little star this week:
  

CeCe and I were doing some coloring yesterday.  She decided that she was going to color Sophia's eyes.  Her marker had a bit of a wide tip to it though, and it kind of looked like Sophia was in a fight when she was done.  CeCe was not happy with the result and was ready to scrap the picture.  But we had colored quite a bit already and I didn't really want to start another one.  So I did the next best thing - I turned Sophia into a rock star.  Dark sunglasses.  That did the trick and everyone was happy.  As it turns out, CeCe likes the idea so much that she has done a couple more pictures with sunglasses now.  Who's the real rock star here?  Anyway, here is our completed picture:


During one point of our coloring, CeCe was having a hard time deciding between two shades of purple.  So I put both of them in my hand and did eenie meenie minie mo.  I ended up picking the very best one which was light purple.  CeCe was apparently not happy with the result and asked me to do it again.  I just gave her the dark purple.  She was not happy with that and still wanted me to do it again.  (There were only the two choices.)  So I did another round of eenie meenie minie mo and magically selected the dark purple.  She then accepted the marker and was happy.  I guess it's all about presentation.

Yesterday afternoon we took the sled out to the little hill behind our house.  CeCe had a blast as you can see:


Julie has been learning to crochet and finished the third toque this week.  They all had to wear their new creations for breakfast.  They all love them, but Ginny would live in hers if we let her.


Last night there was a family Christmas party/program at church.  There was half an hour of carnival type games followed by a program.  It was really well put on and the girls had a blast.  Here is a little game of snowball race:


And here is some giant tic tac toe:


That's it for now.  CeCe has a field trip this afternoon to a local radio station, so that should be fun.  Later.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Recitals, Movember, cooking and what did I just say?

November is certainly leaving with a lot more snow than normal and crazy cold temperatures.  Yesterday we braved the cold to go to the girls' piano recital.  It was held at an extended care home, and I think it was enjoyed by all.  Here's Jorja:


And Ginny:


And Ginny with her duet partner Mom:


Today is also the last day of Movember.  Once again, I grew the stache and raised a bit of money for prostate cancer research.  Here is the daily progress throughout the month:


Yesterday I was making some banana chocolate chip muffins.  Jorja was helping, as she likes to do.  I find most of my recipes online and one website I like is Mennonite Girls can Cook.  Jorja knows this already, so as we were getting ready to make the muffins, I asked her where we were getting the recipe from.  'Mennonite girls can cook!' she replied.  And then she said, 'But so can Mennonite Dads.'  Aw, what a kid.

Do you ever have one of those experiences where you think to yourself, 'gee, I never imagined I would ever say that'?  I had one of those this afternoon.  The girls were playing polly pockets.  We have an assortment of different sets all the same size - some Barbie, some Disney princess and some Disney fairy ones.  All was going well for a while, but then there was some sort of disagreement.  I wasn't really paying attention, but as it escalated, Ginny came to find me.  She said Jorja wasn't letting her use a dress that had originally been designed for a fairy unless she put it on Tinkerbell.  So then I went in there and said, 'The dresses are for everyone.  Anyone can use any dress.  It doesn't matter if you're human or fairy.'  Then I left.  Then I thought, 'what the heck did I just say?'  Then I chuckled.  What has life become?  Later.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Ogres, don't say hi and foughing

CeCe has some new lip gloss that smells like some sort of fruit.  I'm not really sure which one.  She put some on the other day and wanted me to smell her lips.  You'd think that may be a strange request, but I've been asked to do that on many occasions over the past several years.  So I bent down to her face level and took a deep breath and said how nice they smelled.  She took a step back and wrinkled up her nose.  'That was too close!' she said.  'That was kind of like an ogre.  Eww.'  I guess next time I won't be so enthusiastic.

We were driving home from school today and were stopped waiting for a school bus.  Ginny saw a friend of hers out the window and pointed him out.  He was talking away to himself and then started climbing a little snow bank, got down on his knees and started punching holes into it.  His mouth never stopped moving.  He was very into whatever he was imagining.  I asked Ginny if she wanted to say hi and started rolling down her window.  She said no and then she and Jorja started this whole giggling fit about how it would be so weird to say hi.  (They've always been weird about seeing friends outside of school or wherever they normally see them.  We'll get home from somewhere and they'll say that they saw someone.  Did you say hi?  Well, no, of course not.  Weird.)  He was pretty into whatever he was doing though - it may have been weird to say hi in this case.

The girls all had a run of bad colds which we are pretty much over now.  The one day Ginny was coughing and then she started to giggle.  I asked her what was so funny.  She said that as she was coughing, she squeezed out a fart.  Ahh, the ever funny fart.  It never gets old.  We chuckled and then came up with a new word - fough.  It's the fart/cough combination.  She thought that was pretty hilarious.  Jorja walked into the room.  'Jorja, I foughed!'  More laughter from Ginny and a confused look from Jorja.  I don't think they're quite ready for the shart yet.  Later.

Christmas is coming

Maybe it's all the snow and the cold weather, but it seems like we were into the Christmas spirit early this year.  And our yard shows it.  In Saskatoon we were on a corner lot with a huge front yard, so things seemed a bit more spread out.  Here we have our double driveway and a little bit of grass in front of the house.  So we filled it up.  

Here's my helper posing with the 10 foot long snowman:

Here's everything lit up at night:

This picture was pre-decorating.  The other two girls were sick and it was freezing cold, but Ginny wanted to play in the snow.  Kids and winter:

Here's Jorja enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate.  It was mostly about the marshmallows:

And here's the new prelit tree we bought this year.  That was awesome setting up:
Later.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Ninjas, tire pressure and a tangled mess

Here we are into the middle of November already.  It is crazy how time flies.  Looking back over things, I realized I didn't even put up any Halloween pictures of the kids.  So here are my ninjas in action:



And my princess out getting candy and hanging with creepy statues on porches (both ninjas were too afraid of it.  How does that work?):


It appears winter is here to stay.  We started off with a couple of nice soft and melty snow falls, but those days are gone.  Now it's cold and miserable.  CeCe and I did get in a bit of fun before things got too nasty.  Here we are with our #Movember inspired snowman.  The spring from our old trampoline proved to be the perfect accessory.  At least I thought so.  CeCe took it off as soon as the pictures were taken.  Apparently snowmen shouldn't have mustaches.


CeCe's preschool class had a field trip to a car dealership last week.  I know - it seemed a bit strange to me too.  But it turned out pretty good.  They got to have tire races, check out the garage and check the air pressure on a tire.  They each got to keep a tire gauge too, so they were pretty pumped about that.  (No pun intended.)  It was my turn to be the parent helper so I got to enjoy the experience as well.  Here is CeCe getting ready to check the tire:


The girls had this whole week off school from Nov 10-14 which was something we had never heard of before.  But I guess they haven't had any days off yet this year, so it must all work out.  They don't have any more days off until Christmas break now either.  With the holiday being Tuesday, Julie took Monday off work and we went on a little get-away to Saskatoon.  We visited some friends, did some shopping and plenty of swimming and water sliding.  The girls were good and tired by the time we came home.  Julie and I also celebrated our 13th anniversary while we were there.  Nothing says romance like a hotel room full of kids.  

The thing about shopping with three children (especially CeCe) is that you have to realize you have about a two hour window.  After that, it all goes for a wreck and nobody is happy.  And they are much better shoppers when they are being shopped for.  We happened to be in Bootlegger and Julie and I were both looking at things and wanting to try stuff on.  The sales person told me that the jewelry the girls were looking at was on sale.  It all started out between $15 and $20 each but some was marked down to $2.99.  It turned out the $2.99 stuff was further marked down to 5 for $5.  So I bought us some time by letting the girls pick out cheap necklaces.  It worked like a charm.  (Again, no pun intended.)

One necklace CeCe bought had 5 individual chains on it of varying lengths so that it looked like 5 necklaces when it was on.  Well, it didn't really survive the trip home.  To say it got a little tangled would be an understatement.  Julie and I each took a turn trying to untangle it, but it wasn't happening.  Then Ginny came along and looked at it.  In the heat of the moment, I told her I would give her $10 if she was able to get it.  Then Jorja came alone and thought this sounded like a pretty good deal.  Being off school, she had plenty of time to devote to it.  And she devoted a lot of time to it.  She would think she made some progress and come show me and I thought for a while that my money may be in jeopardy.  But then she would have more trouble and it would look like a big ball again.  I asked her once how she was making out and she said, 'Good.  I'm getting there.  It's like Mom's tattoo says - without struggle there is no progress.'  Well, in this case, it turns out there was a lot of struggle and not much progress.  I think my money is safe:


The kids have all had colds the past few days.  That coupled with the cold weather and no school have made for some interesting days.  I'm ready for school tomorrow anyway.  Later.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Swimming, birthday party, glass elevators and pumkins


The girls started swimming lessons this week - twice a week for the next month or so.  It just so happened that their first lesson happened to fall on Julie's birthday.  The lessons are from 4:30-5, so between that, picking the girls up from school and CeCe's preschool, there wasn't much time for me to make a gourmet supper.  So I did the next best thing.  Ordered Boston Pizza to be delivered at 5:30 and bought an ice cream cake.  (I don't think there were any complaints.)  Julie stayed home from swimming lessons just in case the supper showed up early or we were late getting home from swimming - it turned out to be a good thing because the supper was early and waiting for us when we got home.  

The girls all put their bathing suits on at home before we left.  When we got there, we just went into a family change room and they took their clothes off that they were wearing over top of their suits.  However, there are several different lessons going on as well as a parent/tot group so after lessons, the line-up for family rooms was pretty long.  The older two have changed by themselves before, but CeCe was kind of a wild card.  She's old enough that she doesn't like to come into men's bathrooms with me.  (I don't really like public men's bathrooms either.)    After a solid warning and chat, she agreed she would listen to Jorja and accept help if she needed it.  I sent them in to the women's room on their own.  I waited...and waited...texted Julie to tell her what was up...waited...heard CeCe's name being spoken while I waited outside...waited.  Finally they all emerged more or less in tact.  One had pants that were soaked, one had no socks and one was commando.  But we made it.

We then had our birthday supper and had cake served on vintage dessert plates with sparkling raspberry cider served in tea cups.  What more could a girl ask for?  Pinkies out.  Pip pip cheerio.


The girls all love going to the library, so we end up there fairly often.  The library here is in the basement of a building and there is a glass elevator that goes down the one floor.  It has become a highlight of the trips.  The last time the girls rode solo.  They were a little excited:



Ginny's class was carving pumpkins at school this year.  She really wanted me to come - the only issue was what to do with CeCe.  To be honest, I wasn't super keen on the idea.  But I sucked it up and asked the teacher if it was ok if CeCe came along.  Somewhat to my disappointment, she said that was no problem at all.  There was no going back now.  So Wednesday afternoon, CeCe and I set off to carve some pumpkins.  It turns out there were a lot of parent helpers and a lot of little siblings.  Ginny had fun and got her hands dirty.  Once we were both all goopy, we shook hands.  Mmmmm, squishy pumpkin gut handshake.  CeCe didn't have as much fun - preschool, swimming and birthday party the night before along with skating that morning made her a little crusty.  But we made it.  The kids drew the faces and the adults manned the knives.  I ended up carving four pumpkins and zero fingers.  I'd call that a success.



Tonight we'll be off to get some candy.  Two ninjas and one princess.  No, I'm not the princess.  Later.




Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Out of birthdays

I'm not quite sure how to start this, so if it seems like I'm rambling or rabbit trailing, I apologize.  I've had this post ruminating in me for a while, just not quite sure how or if I should share it.  But here goes.  I'll warn you now, you're not going to laugh like most of the stories on here.  I'm going to attempt to share how a four year old sees life, death and faith.

CeCe has said she misses Great Granny ever since she passed away.  If you remember this post, you will remember that CeCe was quite curious about death and what happens after.  She remembers that your hands get cold and your body stops working and that you get to go live with Jesus in heaven.

To listen to her pray is quite something.  She thanks God for always looking after us and for our blessings.  She knows God is always with us to help us.  She is looking forward to the day that she will see Great Grandma again.  (I tell her that I hope that isn't for a while yet.)  I guess that's why Jesus told us we need to have the faith of a child.  They just get it.  

A couple of weeks ago, we were at Julie's parents' place for the weekend.  The weather was nice, so I took the girls for a quad ride to the cemetery to see Great Granny's grave.  They were all quite fascinated.  The older two walked around reading all the headstones that they could to see when people died.  Some only a few days old when they died, a couple only one day, some long lives.  Jorja is getting into history, so she paid attention to the dates and thought some could be from the Spanish flu and some during the depression.  CeCe found a couple that she liked, and just sat there for a while, thinking about things.  


And some are nameless.  The girls all thought that was pretty sad.


CeCe has a book she likes to read too.  It took me by surprise the first time I read it.  It's a Chester Raccoon book (The Kissing Hand) - we had ordered a group of them from one of the girls' scholastic book fairs once.  There's The Kissing Hand about going to school for the first time, there's one about bullies, one about moving and it turns out there's one about death.  It's called the Memory Acorn.  Chester Raccoon comes home from school and says that Skiddel Squirrel had an accident and died and won't be coming back to school anymore.  The book then talks about how to make and cherish memories about loved ones that have passed.  I got a little weepy the first time I read it and wasn't expecting it.  At the end of the book, CeCe looked up to me and said, "I know why Skiddel Squirrel died.  He was out of birthdays.  Just like Great Granny.  She was all out of birthdays too."  

I guess all this just hits a little close to home these days.  With both of the girls' grandpas living with cancer, it's hard.  But I guess it's just like CeCe says, someday we will all be out of birthdays and then we can see God and Jesus in heaven.  It is definitely something to look forward to.  It's just hard on the rest of us still having birthdays.  Later. 

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Authority figures and staying in the lines

I feel like I should keep everyone up to speed with CeCe's skating lessons.  Today she had her fifth lesson.  I know, time keeps flying by.  Last week the instructor told all the parents that we were no longer to watch from the bench at ice level.  We could now either go up into the stands, or inside behind the glass.  She said that it was so that 'the children knew she was the authority figure' out there.  Like there was ever any doubt regarding that matter.  Not from the parents anyway.  So here is my view from up in the bleachers.  CeCe is the middle skater in the picture.  

The girls all like to color pictures and usually the picture is for somebody.  However, when the picture is not received with the gratitude and praise that the giver feels is deserves, it can just as easily be rescinded.  Here is a picture currently hanging on our fridge that Ginny made at school for Jorja.


I guess in Ginny's defense, she didn't totally cut Jorja out - she is part of the family after all.

CeCe and I were doing some coloring a couple of mornings ago.  We were working on the same picture of Jasmine and I asked her what I should color.  She said I could color the lips.  'Red?' I asked.  'Yes,' she replied, 'just try to stay in the lines.'  She's kind of a demanding little thing sometimes.  I did the best that I could, but in my defense, the markers had a pretty thick tip.


So we kept coloring and our hands kept bumping into each other.  It was a pretty small picture.  I would say, 'Ahem! Ahem! You're in my way.'  She would giggle and move her hand.  Then we would bump again and I would say, 'Ahem!'  After the third time of this, she said, 'Or you could just say excuse me.  Did you know that?'  I guess I just got schooled in manners.  Here is our masterpiece:


Until next time, stay in the lines and mind your manners.  Later,

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Farmer talk

Today the girls had a spirit day at school - it was farmer day in honour of the harvest going on.  To be honest, we are a little limited in the 'farmer' clothing.  We settled on jeans, caps and braids.  No coveralls, overalls or work boots here.  Oh well, they were happy, had fun acting the part and looked cute doing it.  That's what counts right?

I need to preface the rest of this story with a little background.  Just before school started, we made a trip to Julie's parents' farm.  It was mostly a down day as far as combining went.  The girls spent the entire day out helping Julie's dad and his brothers service the combines.  They tightened bolts, did some vacuuming, went for tools as required and watched some greasing (the greasing is the key part).  At the end of the day, they did get to make a couple of rounds in the combine with their uncle before it got too tough.  They were all in heaven.  Jorja even declared that she wanted to be a farmer when she grew up.  If you look closely, you can see three little heads riding along here:


So that was their experience with farming.  Fast forward back to this morning.  Ginny came in once she was all dressed up and said, 'Howdy there pardners.'  Jorja said to her, 'That's more cowboy talk than farmer talk.  A farmer would say 'Let's go grease up those nipples!''  That's right.  That's what she said.  So the next time you want to make conversation, forget the weather.  Just talk about greasing the nipples.  (I told her she probably shouldn't talk about nipples at school. She agreed.)  Later.

Sasha's pics of the girls

We got back the pictures of the girls that were taken earlier this summer.  Sasha is so talented and so amazing with the girls.  They all love seeing her every year.  I could post all one hundred and some, but that may be a bit excessive.  So here are some of the highlights:












I know I'm biased, but they are all so beautiful.  I want to print them all and put them up all over the house.  It's definitely hard to choose.  Let me know what you think.  Later.


Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Skating, sweating and cross country

This morning was CeCe's second skating lesson.  I have to admit, I was a little nervous.  Maybe even a lot.  We had tried on Ginny's old skates (which were Bauer) and they fit, so we had them sharpened.  We laced them up this morning and waited on the bench with baited breath.  The instructor came up, gave me a little nod and commented that we had new skates.  She inspected them and they seemed to be to her satisfaction.  And I'll have to admit, she may not be warm and fuzzy, but she does know what she's talking about.  CeCe did amazing today.  She got up on her own, more or less did everything she was supposed to and I didn't have to go out on the ice at all.  She even took a few steps going backward!  I guess the right equipment does make a difference.


On Monday Jorja brought home a note for cross country running.  It turns out their race was going to be 2 km.  That seemed like a lot to me.  There was no way our seven minute training session equaled two kilometers.  So I got a pedometer app for my phone and we set out to run 2K yesterday.  We didn't run the whole way (had to walk for a few stretches), but we did it.  And neither of our chests felt like they were on fire either.  It's amazing what even one day of conditioning will do.  It was about 25 degrees yesterday while we were running though, so we were both good and sweaty.  I sweat when I breath in the summer, so this wasn't a new feeling to me.  But for Jorja, this was apparently a new experience.  As we were nearing the end of our run, she said, 'Dad, am I ever sweating!  I think I'm sweating in parts of my body that have never sweated before.  Usually just my armpits get sweaty!'  Good times.

So with her one full run of 2K under her belt, we set off for the race today.  She made sure we had a towel along so that she could dry off when she was done.  She was anticipating another sweaty outing.  

We were so proud of her.  She finished the race, still running, in about the middle of the field.  21st place overall.  Pretty good for someone who was needing her inhaler after runs a week earlier and never ran that far before.  She was tired, but her lungs felt fine this evening.  Here are some shots of the big race.

In her Team Father Gorman blue shirt:

Her 'sharpied' number on her arm:

A little less than half way though, they came by the start/spectator area:


The final stretch:

A much deserved drink and towel:
So it was an exciting day in our house for two kids and and their sporting endeavors.  Pretty cool to see the improvement.  October 1st is the next race.  It will be interesting to see where Jorja is then.  Later.