Twinkle Twinkle

Okay, I think I have it figured out now.  I had to upload it to youtube first and now it seems to work.  Enjoy, but don't turn up the volume too loud.

Later.

Advice from Ginny

It's Friday today, so it's my day at home with the girls. Jorja still had school, so we took her there. As we were walking in, the sidewalk was quite icy, so I told Ginny to hold my hand. Jorja then grabbed Ginny's other hand and said, "Yeah, I don't do ice either." You don't 'do' ice? Really?

After we dropped Jorja off at school I took the younger two to Safeway with me. We were waiting at the deli department and CeCe was sitting in the cart fighting with her seat belt, trying to get out and squawking pretty good. Ginny then decided that in she would give CeCe some advice. She stood on the bottom part of the cart and pulled herself up so she was eye level with CeCe. Then she said, "CeCe, you should be quiet. See what I am doing? I am being quiet and not doing anything. That is what you should do." When did she become the moral compass?

After school, I let them take out their musical instruments. So they were all marching around the living room, banging away on cymbals, the triangle shakers and a couple of other things that I don't know the name of. I tried uploading a video here, but I can't seem to get it to work. We'll see if I can get it figured out. In the meantime, I think I may have to start bringing earplugs home from work. Later.

TMI

As CeCe gets nearer to the two year mark, it seems her attitude is following suit.  She definitely has a stubborn streak and a bit of a temper too.  We've started giving her time-outs when she acts up.  We have a spot in our family room where she now has to go to 'sit'.  She's starting to get pretty good at it actually.  When you tell her that she needs to sit, she heads over there and plunks herself down.  She puts her head down and tried her hardest to avoid any eye contact.  It looks like she has the feeling shame part down.  The only problem is that she is just so darn cute when she does it that it's hard to keep a straight face.  When she is done, I ask if she's ready to get up and she says yeah and then we hug and it's all good.  For a few minutes and then we do it all over again.  It appears that the use of the word 'sit' is rubbing off on Ginny now.  Tonight after tub, she was tearing around with CeCe and they were getting each other all revved up.  I told Ginny that she needed to calm down and just sit for a minute.  So she went over to CeCe's area and sat herself down.  A couple of seconds later her partner in crime came and joined her.  Not exactly what I had in mind, but the self-imposed time out seemed to work.  The two of them are going to get into a lot of trouble together - I can see that coming already.

I had to work today, but Julie and the girls still had an extra day off, so they came and met me for a lunch date.  We went to Timim Horton's.  That's how Ginny says it - there's an extra im on tim.  As we were almost done, a friend of mine, Bruce,  walked in.  Jorja had already gone to the bathroom to wash up and Julie was in there with Ginny when he walked over to our table.  CeCe was in the process of eating the top half off of a chocolate covered long john, and her face showed it.  Jorja pointed out that her face was covered in chocolate and then Bruce said, "That's how it's supposed to be, isn't it?"  Jorja then felt the need to explain why she had no chocolate on her face.  "I already went and washed.  I peed too while I was in there.  That's why it took so long."  Bruce, who has never met Jorja before laughed and took it all in stride and I slid under the table.  I guess maybe we need to talk about how much we need to share.  Later.

Merry belated Christmas and Happy New Year

It is now January first and I'm back to work tomorrow.  I don't really feel ready for that, but what can you do?  The brewery generally shuts down between Christmas and New Year's so we moved all the stats to the week between.  That way we got all the time off and only needed to use one holiday day.  But I guess it will be good to get back into the routine of things - work, school, daycare. 

The holidays began with a stomach flu in the house - always fun.  It seems that this year has been a lot worse than ever before for stomach bugs (in our house anyway).  We've been pretty lucky up until now.  I guess it's probably the little germ magnets bringing it home. 

We went to our church's Christmas Eve candlelight service on the evening of the 24th.  I think next year will be better is all I have to say about that.  Well, it wasn't that bad.  The older two were fine (and didn't have any incidents with hot wax this year) but CeCe cannot sit still and quiet for an hour.  So I spent much of the time in the foyer with her walking around.  She was happy enough as long as she didn't have to sit still.  And as we were pacing the foyer and the hallways of the church, we encountered several kids in various stages of meltdowns and tantrums.  In that fleeting moment, I realized that maybe we had pretty good kids.  We were already a couple of days into holidays and there had been many instances of patience being tried, but right then, in that light, they looked pretty good.

We came home from church and opened our gifts that night.  It has become our custom to give the girls a new pair of pajamas every Christmas, so that is the first present they open, then they put them on, and then we carry on with the festivities.  They all had a blast and CeCe really got into it this year as well.  It was a late night and they were all ready for bed. 

After lunch on Christmas day, we set out for Julie's parents' place.  We got there in time for the turkey supper with all the trimmings.  The girls then got round two of opening presents and had another late night.  You'd think that after a few late nights that maybe, just maybe, there would be a little sleeping in.  By sleeping in, all I mean is sleeping past 7:00.  Nope.  Every morning was the same.  They lay in bed in their room and then as soon as the clock hits seven, they're out.  "Daddy!  It's seven o'clock!" 

Surprisingly, they had a bit more snow down south than we do here, so we got to partake in the second annual toboggan/sled day in the hills.  Julie's Dad brought some wood (and the girls) out in the backhoe and made a fire.  Julie's brother and his wife were there and Julie's Mom came out too.  Julie's Dad also brought out a sled to pull behind the quad this year that kind of looks like Santa's sled.  There were a lot of rides in that before we made it out to the hills.  The afternoon was spent trudging up the hill and flying down it.  It was a lot of fun, and everyone was still able to walk the next day.  The girls had a lot of fun too, and did remarkably well climbing up that hill.  Every once in a while they would try to hitch a ride on the toboggan, but that wasn't happening.  It was hard enough just walking up there after a while.  By the end of the afternoon, Ginny made it half way up and then plunked herself down and just sat there eating snow.  I've tried in the past to not get them to eat snow, but they're kids and this was Christmas.  What the heck.  Every time we passed her on the way up, we asked her if she wanted to go again.  "No, I'm just eating snow and having a snack," was her answer.  Alrighty then.  For my very last run, I took CeCe with me.  She had been content to sit with Poppa in the backhoe and watch everyone up until then.  I waited to the end to take her just in case she liked it.  There's no way I was going to carry her up the hill every time.  I'm not quite sure if she liked it or not.  She was pretty quiet when we hit the bottom - not quite sure if she should laugh or cry, shit or puke.  It was time to head home.  I'm sure next year she'll be in there like a dirty shirt.  There was talk of bringing out some wieners and marshmallows next year too - looks like it could be evolving into quite the fun annual tradition. 

We came back to Saskatoon on the 28th and just hung out for a few days.  The girls played with their new stuff and continued staying up late and not sleeping in.  Maybe that's the one thing to look forward to in the teenage years. 

My parents came over and spent New Year's with us and the kids got round three of Christmas.  We actually stayed up until midnight this year too.  We had a nice spread of appetizers for supper and snacks and watched the movie 'Bridesmaids' after the kids went to bed.  Funny, funny movie.  The movie ended at about ten to twelve, so we watched the taped delay version of the Niagara Falls New Year's celebration, kissed and went to bed. 

So that's it for 2011.  It's been a good year - looking back a lot of stuff has happened.  Here's hoping 2012 is even better.  (Except for the fact that I will turn 40.)  Later.

December...part 3

This was also the month for Christmas concerts and recitals.  Ginny's both turned out to be on the same day.  The preschool Sunday School program sang some songs in church in the morning, and then it was have a quick bite, turn around and head back out to her music lesson recital.  She did awesome at both.

Jorja missed her piano recital as it was the same afternoon as the kids' Christmas party.  Fun Factory or piano recital?  It wasn't really a tough call.

She had her school Christmas concert this past week too, but it was too dark for any pictures to turn out.  She sang her little heart out though.
Now all the parties and programs are taken care of, it's just a matter of getting all the presents wrapped and under the tree.  Jorja's last day of school is tomorrow, I only have three more days of work (since I don't work Fridays, I get off a day before Julie).  Then we are all off the week between Christmas and New Years, so that should be good.  Later. 

December...part 2

There seem to be few days worthy of playing outside this year.  We have hardly any snow.  We had one big snowfall earlier, but a lot of melting temperatures since then have left things a combination of exposed grass and ice.  We did have a slight skiff recently so we all went out. 








I thought it was time to put them all to work.

A lot of the time they have been too sick to play outside too.  It seems we just have a steady rotation of colds and flus going through the house.  Jorja had bronchitis once and was on antibiotics.  CeCe is just getting over a nasty cold.  She always seems to get so hoarse when she's sick.  By supper time, she babbles on in her half words/half gibberish speak in this poor little voice that sounds exactly like Donald Duck.  If you didn't feel so sorry for her, it might be kind of funny.

Later.

December...part 1

It's hard to believe where this month has gone.  We're less than a week to Christmas now.  I will try to remember some of what has gone on over the past few weeks.  Some photos may help me.

The first weekend of the month was the kids' Christmas party put on by my employer.  They do it every year, and it is always so much fun.  The girls really look forward to it.  The past several have been at the Fun Factory here in town.  Doesn't that just scream a good time?!  It's a whole factory of fun after all.  All three girls enjoyed themselves.  There is a huge maze of tunnels, slides, ball pits and the such for the older girls.  I did have to go in once to rescue Ginny.  I had to do the same thing last year too.  There is one particular slide that ends in a small ball pit.  The only way out is just out of Ginny's reach.  Jorja tried to boost her, but couldn't quite to it, so I got the frantic call.  "Dad, come quick!  Ginny's stuck!"  At least this year she wasn't freaking out when I got there.

There is also a small area for toddlers to play in complete with their own ball pit.  CeCe could obviously not read the sign that said 'Keep balls in ball pit' as her favourite activity seemed to be going and getting them and throwing them over the little fence that enclose the play area.  Oh well, she had a little helper who apparently could read the sign and took it as his own mission to gather up the balls she had thrown out.

And after a couple hours of fun and sugar, Santa showed up.  Not one of our kids cried this year!  That was definitely a first.  Jorja and Ginny both talked to him, CeCe not so much.  She sat there though, and used her famous 'if I don't look at you, you don't really exist' defense.  She's quite good at it really.




After all that fun, I took the older two to their cousin's birthday party yet where they were treated to a balloon artist.  Needless to say everyone slept good that night.

Later.