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.

CeCe gets mad

Ginny likes to make me 'smoothies' during her bath time.  She takes the cup I use for rinsing her hair and fills it with water, sometimes rubber ducks, sometimes face cloths and suds.  Sometimes she takes my order, other times she just gives me whatever she feels like.  As long as I pretend to drink it and ooh and aah about how this is the best smoothie I've ever tasted, she is happy.  The other night as she was making one, she informed me that she was putting spices into it.  This was something new.  I've never had one with spices before.  So I asked her what kind of spice she was using.  She looked at me, gave a little grin and said, "Cho-co-late chi-ip!"  Ahh, she knows me well.  That would have to be one of my favourite 'spices.'

Our ninja doesn't seem to be going away either.  Now she's got her own alter ego ninja persona - Ninja Lily!  Yes, she strikes fear into those who hear it and get caught in her path.  HIYAH!

Jorja brought home her report card this week.  Yup, she takes after me.  And Julie of course.  But now she's sick again - this is the third day of school she missed this week.  She's had a headache, slightly upset stomach and been coughing her lungs out.  Julie took her in yesterday and it turns out she has an infection in her chest, so she's on antibiotics.  Fun and games.

CeCe is developing into quite the little character.  She too definitely has a mind of her own.  We have a child gate on our family room to keep her from coming up the stairs and wreaking havoc everywhere.  I was getting supper ready the other day and needed something from the basement, so I had to walk through the family room.  Jorja, Ginny and CeCe were all playing down there, and all was well until I came into sight.  CeCe felt that she should be accompanying me to the kitchen, and decided to let me know.  She started walking over to the little Christmas tree (we have two - one small one with 'child-friendly' decorations downstairs and the big one with breakables upstairs).  She grabbed a decoration off the tree (while I was telling her not to touch the tree) and proceeded to march over to the gate and throw the decoration over the gate in my general direction.  Well, let me tell you, that was not going to fly.  I managed to keep a straight face (her little march of defiance was kind of cute and funny looking) and told her that that was NOT what we did.  She then spent her first time on the 'naughty step.'  So it begins.  Later.

Decorating

This afternoon we put up the tree.  Well, I put up the tree, strung the lights and garland this morning while Ginny and Julie were at piano lessons and then the girls decorated it this afternoon.  I think next year may be a bit more relaxing.  This year was a bit stressful to say the least.  Jorja and Ginny were excited and pulling decorations out of the box.  CeCe didn't really know what was going on - just that she wanted to be involved.  So between keeping her under control and keeping the really breakable ornaments away from the other two, it was busy.  I was ready for it to be over.  A lot of the ornaments have strings tied in a loop to put them on the tree.  The girls got them on, but not very far, so when they went to put the next one up, the previous one hit the floor.  There was a lot of 'Bang!'  'What was that?!'  'It's okay, it's not broken.'  In the end, there were two fatalities, but the girls had fun and were pretty proud of themselves.

It is also a yearly tradition in our house to bring out the Fisher Price Little People nativity scene.  The girls were all over that this afternoon.  When you push the angel on the roof, it plays 'Away in the Manger.'  Jorja didn't know all the words, but she remembered we had a story book that had all the words for the song.  So she went and found the book, played the tune on the stable and read the words and by the end of the afternoon, she had the whole song down.  Pretty impressive.

After everyone is bed, I like to find all the pieces and line everything up.  Julie thinks I enjoy it, and to be truthful, I do.

Later.

Movember

I'm not sure where this month has gone, or why I haven't written more.  The longer I go, the more scared I get to write something new, so I'm just going to jump back in.  Time to shake off these winter blues (seeing as how it feels more like spring now) and write again.

Julie and I celebrated our tenth anniversary this month on the tenth.  We had plans of a little getaway - a couple of nights in a hotel (with the kids, so there wouldn't be too much celebrating) water sliding and having some fun.  Unfortunately, Ginny and CeCe both got the stomach flu the night before, so we ended up cancelling everything.  We were pretty disappointed, but didn't really feel like sick kids in a hotel.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate puke?  Yup, not a fan.  At one point, we were in the process of cleaning up CeCe and her mess when she puked again.  Only this time I was holding her.  It's funny how my first reaction was to try to contain everything so it wouldn't make a mess everywhere.  She was in just a diaper at this point, to she went straight to the shower with Julie.  That left me and my shirt which had caught pretty much everything.  I should have been a goalie.  Long story short, I threw the shirt out.  Yes, our anniversary ended up a little more low key than we anticipated. 

On the upside, it was nice that weekend, so I got the Christmas lights up.  I thought I had bought a lot after Christmas last year, but they just didn't go as far as I would have liked.  I wanted to Griswold up the place, but it still looks tasteful.  Oh well, maybe next year.  If Julie gets her way, we will have at least one inflatable on the lawn pretty soon.

Ginny has decided that she is a ninja.  So far I'm okay with this.  She hasn't discovered throwing stars yet.

We got out the 'Just Dance' game for the wii the other night.  All you do is hold the controller in one hand and mimic the dance moves of the person on the TV.  If you wanted to cheat, you could just move your hand the right way and get a really good score, but there's no fun in that.  We started out with Ginny and Jorja each having a controller, Julie was helping CeCe, and I was dancing with no controller.  Eventually Ginny tired of holding it, so she went free-style and I took the controller.  It was fairly obvious that I was winning all the dances, so I put the remote in the wrong hand.  This strategy worked, and Jorja ended up with more points than me.  Later on that evening, Jorja said to me, "Dad, I know you let me win that game."  What, I said in shock.  "You put the controller in the wrong hand,"  she said.  Holy observant batman.  I can't even let her win without her knowing it.  I thought I was being kind of sneaky.  I guess I'm not a ninja.

We had Jorja's parent-teacher interview this evening (or three-way conference as they like to call them now because the student comes too).  There are not a lot of times when I have been more proud.  We knew she was a great reader, but she is just an all around good kid too.  She helps others, listens well (not sure why this doesn't happen as good at home), is nice to everyone and is a leader.  When they have 'free' time, they are encouraged to do whatever they want - draw, colour, play games, read.  Apparently Jorja's favourite thing to do during this time is curl up in the rocking chair and read the children's Bible that is in the classroom.  I almost got a little misty eyed when I heard that.  She's a pretty amazing kid. 

This November has also become Movember for me.  That's right, I'm sporting a stache.  I'm just not sure that a month is enough time to do all the things that I would like.  It's not really long enough for wax yet.  Oh well.  If you want to donate to the Movember campaign for prostate cancer, check it out:
http://mobro.co/DaveKroeker

Later.

My helpers

Jorja was in school today, so I had my two little helpers here with me.  Ginny wasn't doing a very good job of watching CeCe (in her defence, she is only three), so she was under my feet in the kitchen.  I brought a toy up for her to play with, but that didn't last long.  I started to empty the dishwasher, and CeCe was right in there, ready to help.  She started with the plates, followed by the bowls.  She actually did pretty good - nothing got broken.  Then she moved over to start the cutlery.  She grabbed the first spoon, gave it a big lick and then handed in to me.  She grabbed the next one, stuck it in her mouth, and handed it to me.  I could see I was going to have to intervene here.  I told her that we didn't need to taste the silverware before we put it away, and it went fairly well after that.  The only other spoon she put in her mouth was her own, so it wasn't too bad.
I decided to tackle the leaves while CeCe was napping, so Ginny came out to help me.  Julie's parents are up, so Nanny was on CeCe lookout.  I started out giving Ginny a rake, and soon realized she was going to kill at least one of us.  I took the handle off it so it was a little more manageable and that seemed to work for a while.  But she tires of that after a while, so finally I caved.  "Ginny, do you want to come jump in the pile of leaves over here?" I asked.  She was all over that.  She jumped, she rolled, she 'slept', she threw leaves in the air.  After all, what good is helping rake leaves if you can't have a little fun too.

So my helpers for the day may have caused me a little extra time and a little more work, but I wouldn't change any of it.  It was a great day.

Later.

Hallowe'en 2011

The weather was fairly reasonable this year, but it was still fairly cool after the sun went down.  At least there was no snow.  We managed to sqeeze Jorja and Ginny's princess dresses over their coats, so that was good.  It would be a real waste to have to wear a parka over top - the dress would lose a lot of it's effect.  Not like the touques and jackets really added to the look.  Oh well, it's Saskatchewan, what can you do.

I have to admit that I did have a favourite costume this year, and that was CeCe.  She was my little princess Leia, and she was adorable.   Don't you agree?

Later.