Happy V Day!

My favourite Valentine! Love you hawney!

The girls had a pretty awesome Valentine's day yesterday. It was off to a hectic start as we raced off for gymnastics for 9am but we made it despite the stormy weather. School was closed but luckily, not the gym! Everyone else made it today too so it was more fun than last week.

After the lesson was over at 10, all the kids went over to the climber thing (slides & tunnels, netting etc) and played. and played. and played. We were the last ones there & at 3:30 (yes, FIVE and a HALF hours later) I had to drag them out of there. I have no idea how long they'd have stayed in there if it had been up to them but it was close to 4pm when we got home so that was long enough. Luckily I'd come prepared this week & there was enough lunch to keep everybody happy and they had their drinks to keep them hydrated. Not surprisingly, they slept pretty well last night!

When we got home, there was a surprise in the mailbox! A Valentine's package from Grammie & Grandad. This went over like gangbusters of course. They looooooooooove getting mail addressed to themselves and to have treats on top of that just about put them over the moon. It was quite exciting to rip into those goodies and they were very happy with their loot. They decided to stick their stickers into their valentine cards and have been keeping everything in the gift bag it came in & carry it around or put it on their nightstand for safekeeping.

Ice Ice Baby...

Ok, first of all, how many people remember that song? Anybody else still think it's good? : ))) LOL

this one is pretty close to what I'm going for. I used my telephoto lens & set it to macro so that helped isolate the iciness but still not "amazing"

So I'm still in pursuit of my perfect "ice" picture but got some ok ones yesterday. I can't quite seem to get the hang of framing it so the sparkliness is captured. These looked way more impressive to the naked eye, now why can't I see it behind the lens??? I want that perfect beautiful winter icy calendar shot and now that it's eluding me, I'm becoming obsessed with it. Eventually I will have my way.

The kids must have felt bad that I wasn't getting that look that I wanted so they started chucking ice chunks at the garage. I asked them what they were doing!?!?! and Lovey said "trying to make the garage sparkly for you Mumma!"

I am Princess, hear me roar!

Snack time at the royal court

Another day in princess land! They're back on a pink princess dress kick & are putting these on pretty much as soon as breakfast is over. Honey seems to prefer her velveteen Christmassy dress but still maintains her princess status. It's all in the way one carries herself & not tied up in the apparel.

Princesses travelling incognito...

don't forget the flounce & flourish at the end of your twirl...

and what every royal household needs, more princesses! Teena & Boo came over Wednesday afternoon. It took me forever to convince my royal darlings that they should go outside. The major obstacle to getting dressed in snowgear is that "princesses don't wear pants" (or socks either). With all the snow I was trying to get enough space cleared so Teena could park when she got there but as it turned out, the dawdlers foiled my plan. We had just gotten the shovels out when they pulled up & parked on the side of the road. So we just let the kids play instead.

We're gonna rage around the clock tonight......

Well it wasn't really tonight but the other night Sweetie was in fine form! She'd woken up crying because she had to pee. So the obvious fix for this would be to go the bathroom, right? One would think. However, this infuriated her to no end & she started crying & hollering as soon as I sat her down. She'd almost have you believe you were mistaken, that she did not in fact need to do any such thing, were it not for the violent stream of urine I could hear hitting the water. Thinking I'd now wrap up this little visit, I got her pj's back in order and started to carry her back to bed. Wrong again. She was still furious. Something about the pants or underpants or pj's was wrong. Too rimply. or was it rumbly? Either way, I was screwed! Hoping she'd be tired & drift back to sleep once I got her back in bed, I proceeded to tuck her in but she just kicked off the blankets, still mad about the rimpli/rumbli-ness. So I try to rearrange her clothing to see if that might mollify her. Negative. THAT'S NOT HOW I DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!! She had herself worked up to a pretty good frenzy at this point so I just laid there with her, trying to wait it out. Tears were streaming down her face. I felt bad for the poor little thing & wiped her cheeks. MY TEARS!!!!!!! I WANT MY TEARS! PUT THEM BACK!!!!!!!!! If I could have squeezed a drop out of the sleeve I'd used, I totally would have. The volume & intensity of this little fit was UNbelievable. Murray was sure I'd skewered her with a hot poker and came up to put an end to the torture, only to find out I was the one suffering! She was still going strong & I'd run out of "soothing" ideas so I decided to let him work his magic on her. Not ten minutes later he came stomping down the stairs with the screams of "MY TEAAAAAAAAAAAARS!!" following behind him. I let her stew for a little while. I turned on her light to see if maybe that would help. I asked if she wanted to go sleep in my bed for awhile. That got her attention but she was still pretty keen on the screaming thing. I closed her door & left & got myself ready for bed. When I came back & asked again, she was ready & settled right down. We got in bed, said some prayers and after awhile she was ready to go sleep in her bed.

Oh It's Lovely Weather for...

More snow but sooooooooo pretty! Great big fat fluffy flakes that drifted down without amounting to a whole lot so we could still go on the sleighride today. It was this month's family fellowship event & it was a big hit. There were two packed sleighs, almost all the seats were filled with parents & every parent had a kid in their lap and there still wasn't enough room for everyone. The teenagers ended up waiting for a sleigh to come back & going for a ride on their own. From the sounds of it, it's just as well. They were a rowdy bunch & I think they all got thrown off the sleigh at least once. They were all soaked when they got back but they were all smiles!

The girls enjoyed the horses & we spotted several deer in the woods. The snow was still falling as we went but it wasn't cold at all. When we got back to the lodge we had a potluck supper and then all the kids ran wild. They had a girls club and were all piled in this corner with cushions barricading them in & keeping boys out I assume. LOL They had a great time running around with the other kids & we ate well & had an enjoyable time ourselves. My cousins were there too so that was an added bonus!