Another busy day here in crazyland! : ))

The kids seemed a little busy last night & I wasn't really ready to get up at 7:30 but Murray had been up slightly more than I had (I think) and I couldn't get back into that sleepy drifty mode so I gave up & let him have the sleep in today. The girls completed their 4 morning jobs (eat, get dressed, make beds, brush teeth) without any fuss and then we played school.































Today my "class" learned about the colour rouge. Every once in awhile we learn a new French word but I don't really have any system or plan. They love doing arts & craftsy type stuff so today I tried to combine that with language. I drew rouge in block letters and then let them colour it in with MARKERS (practically NO access to these around here normally). Then they used their scissors to cut out rouge things from magazines and glued them on the paper. Holy ol' scissor challenged! It seemed like a simple plan in MY HEAD but it was hard to keep all three cutting happily. We worked on these for almost an hour and I couldn't believe some of the contortions they were going through to hold these scissors. Upside down scissors, elbows up in the air, hands pointed towards themselves. I never really thought about how much work went into my cutting skills way back when but apparently it requires alot of practice. They'd be trying to cut & end up ripping their picture or cut right through the middle of it etc I had to keep going around the table and helping them position the scissors right side up, taking their thumb out of the bottom hole & showing them where to put their fingers etc. Anyways, they had fun & definitely know what rouge means. At least for today anyway! Murray got up in the middle of "class" and was both impressed & amused by the lesson.











































































Sweetie abandoned her project first & went off to play in the living room & made herself a cozy little lounging spot!

I looooooove this picture of Sweetie with Bunny.

After lunch we went swimming again & since our current vehicle offers a spot for a 6th passenger, we decided to make good use of it & brought along my cousin Weezie. The kids were thrilled to have her with us at the pool & when they found out she was coming for supper and a sleepover... well! that was just the best!

Things went really well at the pool, there were no floatie belts available this time so they were on their own. With an extra person there, we were really able to concentrate on each girl and they got alot of practice today. Lovey was able to cover a good little distance on her own and they were all quite pleased to discover they're tall enough to touch the bottom in the little hot tub pool.

Honey's really coming out with some comments lately that just crack us up! One week we were at M&D's for supper & were clearing the table for dessert & I took her utensils. She looked at me and said " I neeeeeed a spoon ya know!" Today, I asked her if she wanted to dip some apple slices in her yoghurt. She looked at me and wrinkled up her face and said "of course NOT!" Murray and I cracked right up.

Old Friends, Good Times!

We had some visitors today! Monca & I lived across the hall from each other in my 2nd year of university. Then in my second year she was right next door. We played a million games of crib,, ate a LOT of icecream & the odd McCain chocolate cake and had more than one water fight! She lives an hour and a half away and has even more kids than me ; ))) For some reason she spaced hers all out though and they're all different ages & into different things... that's CRAZY!!! She's in town every once in awhile for kids' doctor appointments etc but we've never managed to get together in the 7 years we've lived here. Today, she put her foot down, we were meeting up no matter what. So I thought I'd take the kids & meet her while she was at the mall. Great idea right? Nope. damn hockey! Murray's Thurs hockey started today and there was no question of him missing it. So instead, she brought her kids here and that actually turned out better I think. The kids had a lot of fun & they didn't get bored in a food court so she & I could actually chat a bit. Her daughter is the only girl so really enjoyed her visit with the mini princesses here!

While Monca was still here, a taxi pulled up. Hmmm interesting! Murray hops out... car trouble? Well that would be a bit of an understatement. He was merging into traffic and didn't notice that the vehicle in front of him had stopped and had a teensy little crash. Nothing major & he's fine, the other driver's fine but the cars need some work. In the meantime we're driving a 6 seater Mazda5 which is pretty neat. Not much cargo room in the back though so I don't think we'll be tempted to give up the station wagon just yet!

Since the carseats were all in our car at the time of the accident, they all had to be replaced so I ran around tonight to try and find the same kind we had last time, since only the slimmest model will fit 3 across the backseat! As you would expect, they don't make that model anymore! I picked a different model from the same company, found a salesclerk to get me 2 more off the topshelf, navigated 2 shopping carts through the store & checkouts & got them into the car. I went to the shop where our car is waiting for repairs/parts etc & tried to jam them in. No dice. Packed them all back in their boxes, loaded them back in the car, dragged them back in to the store for a refund & then headed to another store. I found another model by the same company and they had exactly 3 of them in stock! I grabbed those & quickly got through the store with my handy dandy double cart system & raced off to choir only a few minutes late.

With the fundraiser for the foodbank, the cantata & all the new Advent & Christmas season music to learn, we were at choir almost a full 2 hours. I was hoping she'd give us a break after all the long practices to get ready for the Memorial hymn sing. Nope, she's merciless! : ))) I was able to quickly try the new seats in the car & these ones seem like they'll work.

I have no idea how much the car repairs are going to be but we're definitely going to get our moeny's worth out of that $300 deductible! The seats were almost that much alone. I'm a little nervous about what our premiums will look like at renewal next summer....

So the expenses are hitting us a little hard this month! Plumber to retrieve jammed toothbrush deep in the bowels of the plumbing (they were here 2 hrs...), roofer to fix leaky stink pipe, car insurance deductible, and we also need new winter tires this year, the propane tank was just filled and oh, yes Christmas is coming up!!!!! This could take some fancy juggling! Hopefully we can space some of it out a bit so it's not all due on the same month's credit card bill.

In other news, there were some monkey sightings around here today...

Crazy Kids...

Honey trying to catch the rain on her tongue. We went outside & even when the rain started, they wanted to stay out there. We put up their hoods, got some mitts on & they were happy was clams for an hour! Pretty cheap entertainment!
They made a "salad" for Murphy, lots of cedar leaves, sticks & croutons (aka pinecones). They were a little put out that the dog didn't appreciate they hard work on his delicacy...
He loooooooooves this game but I get tired of it after awhile & was glad to send in the pink team!
My little greeters. Total strangers are met with great smiles & enthusiastic waves. Need a little pick me up? Take a drive down our street!

They were full of it in the evening once Murray was home, it was like someone had slipped them some uppers when we weren't looking. They were like little rubber bouncy balls, flinging themselves around the room, ricocheting wildly, aimlessly, TIRELESSLY! Honey & Lovey decided they wanted to do a puppet show & sang an impromptu piece together (or rather, the PUPPETS did) and it was quite a long number!

Another Monday done!

It is getting hard to get out of bed in the morning!! It's sooooooo cold that I have no motivation whatsoever to leave my cozy duvet and step on the chilly floor. It's soon time to turn the heat on I think! We're going to try and make the downstairs a little less drafty & hope that helps with the overall temp in the house. There doesn't seem much point in letting it all run out the door so I hate to have it on until we do something about that leaky spot. I have a plan, it's just a matter of getting the right materials. I'm going to phone around tomorrow & see if I can get what I want ordered in & then hopefully that will do the trick.

Luckily it turned out to be a pretty nice day & we spent quite a bit of the afternoon outside in the sunshine. The girls collected leaves and rocks and also practiced driving their bikes on the road. Sweetie got on a little bit of a downward slope and the rapidly accelerating pace scared her and she ended up in the ditch but unharmed. There was quite a bit of screaming though so not everyone escaped the accident unscathed! (my ears!) After that she didn't last much longer, going down the hill was scary & pedalling up the slope was impossible. Lovey & Honey fared a little better but Lovey stuck it out the longest. We weighed the girls the other day & Lovey is at 39 lbs while the other 2 are at 36lbs, apparently that 3 extra pounds makes just enough of a difference in your pedal power!

It seems to still take awhile to get these kids moving, I can only imagine how much time snowsuits, hats, mitts etc will increase our departure times! Once we finally did get back inside, it was time to prep for our dinner guest, Old Nanny! She has had us over so many times, I can't even count them all. I decided it was high time we returned the invite! The girls were excited when she arrived and they all played tea party while I got supper ready. They must have thought she was very important as I noticed they'd put a table cloth on their little table, a first around here! It was an old baby blanket that's been dragging around the house forever, but it's the thought that counts right???? They were even more excited when they realized she was going to eat HERE!!!!!!! Wow! Very sociable little girls & they love company : )))

Some more editing practice tonight:

These were all shot using 800 ISO (usually I'd use 100 or 200- like film speed) but I bumped it up the other night to do the flashless pics of Sweetie indoors & I forgot to change it back for the outdoor stuff today. As a result all the shots had a lot of "noise" (or grain) & I downloaded some free software today that removes that or quite a bit of it! So that improved the pictures quite a bit right off the bat.

Removed the distracting stick in the background & the paint flakes off the step & brightened up her eyes.

same thing for eyes & cloned out some of the branches in the background & the peeling bark that was on her shoulder (it was bugging me), took away the dark circles under her eyes...
cleaned up the rash on her chin & did the eye thing again (looooove that trick!) & got rid of the dark spots under her eyes

It's sooo neat what you can do with software to enhance a picture & fix some of your mistakes (like the ISO thing) They'll love me when they're teenages & I can glam them all up!

Weekend's Over!

A fairly tame weekend compared with the last few! Murray had a hockey game Friday night... Honey & I went out to do a bit of shopping on Saturday...

On Friday when I went out for groceries, Hween costumes were 50% off so I picked up some cheapie dress up clothes, SnowWhite, Tinkerbell, Belle & 3 firefighters. Tinkerbell didn't ring up at the sale price so I ended up getting that for free, woohoo!! (it was the most expensive one too!) The girls put those all on immediately although there was a bit of a stir over who got the Tink outfit. I'd bought it with Sweetie in mind since she has some pj's with her on them but Honey was rather keen on it but Sweetie had already spotted it... Honey eventually settled for Belle but she & Lovey didn't keep theirs on for long. Sweetie had to be peeled out of hers at bedtime though! The next day she was going to come shopping with us but when she found out she couldn't run around in the flimsy outfit & would have to put on real clothes, she said she'd rather stay home. Now I know where I rate around here! She was the only one who hung around long enough to get pictures of. These were all with my new lens & they were shot in the kitchen just using the light in the room & no flash but I'm still not quite nailing the focus but she was pretty cute as Tink so I had to post them!

After we got home from shopping we had a quick lunch & then headed for the pool. We hadn't been to the big pool in a long time so they'd forgotten all their swimming progress but were pretty comfortable jumping in and playing around. The hot tub got closed down early so the girls didn't last long in the big pool. By the time we got outside, the weather was terrible!

The rest of the day was cold, windy & rainy. Our roof leaked & the bathroom ceiling dripped all day today. Calling a roofer tomorrow...

Today I went to the choir fundraiser at church & our "show" went really well & I enjoyed it. We raised over $10,000 which is pretty nice & will be a good help to the renovation fund. I had several people ask me if I was having us much fun up there as it appeared! We've practiced these songs for months & months so I know them really well now & can relax and not have to glance down for the words anymore. Someone burned a CD of it so I'm hoping to get a copy at practice this week. Sitting right in the middle of the choir, you don't really get to hear how it all sounds, you can only hear your section and a bit of the one beside you. The sound is MUCH better out in front but you can't be out there AND in the choir at the same time so we're never really sure how we sound but do get good feedback occasionally.

The kids got out their playdoh tonight & made some 'treats' for us to eat. Mmmmmmmmm! Lovey actually had some in her mouth until she spit it out on the table, ewwwwwwwww!