Winter Escape!

The girls decided to have a little summer fun today & got out their beach cover ups! I was in a turtleneck sweater with an undershirt, jeans & socks & crocs on! I swear these kids have no feeling in their feet or legs.

After the hula party, they settled on the couch to watch a movie & I had to insist on covering them with a pile of blankets. While they were doing that, I went upstairs to lie down. I seem to have some sort of stomach bug that is causing all sorts of GI difficulties for the THIRD day now. Yuck. Anyway, the next thing I knew, it was 5:30 and I hadn't even started supper except to thaw the meat.

Another new activity, brought to us by Old Nanny! The Fisher Price Digital Arts & Crafts Studio is a HUGE hit! They love creating all these little projects and colouring, stamping, painting their pictures etc. THey've been making party hats, name tags, colouring pictures and all sorts of stuff. It's amazing to watch them navigate through the different menus to get to the stuff they want. They're going to be computer whizzes like Daddy! :)))

Holy Knock Knocks Batman!

Well we've entered the wonderful world of joke telling. It is an unskilled world and rarely funny.

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
refrigerator's sister bed blam
uhhhhhh, refrigerator's sister bed blam woo!!!! GET IT?????
well, no.
Why didn't you laugh?????
it doesn't make sense?
oh.

and so on it goes. They can recognize a good knock knock joke when they hear it from Dee Dee Doodle (knock knock, who's there? Jess. Jess who? Jess me silly! GET IT?) and are in stitches over these. However, they can NOT make up their own. Murray have been trying to help them out by making up our own to show them how it goes but no improvements. They understand the basic format but that's about the extent of it.

Had some fun yesterday after school! Boo came over to play and she let Teena hang out with us too. Apparently there was QUITE a discussion about this on the way over and Teena had to do some fancy talking to get included in the deal. I always find it amazing how independent Boo is. On her very first day of school, she didn't even want Teena to come in with her! The whole time Teena was there, Boo was telling her "it's OKAAAAY you can GO now!" Mine are skirt clingers who would have me stay nearby forever so this is what I'm used to.

They had a great time playing in the snow and we ventured into the field. the untouched, full of soft, fluffy, deep snow field. yeah. brilliant plan Kelly. Teena & I forged ahead and managed to pack it down a bit for them to follow us and they managed without too much trouble but Teena and I

Snow Monkeys

We had a sighting here in the yard and I'm not sure if there will be more of these coming out of the woods but these are all we've seen so far. They appear to be friendly critters, just scampering around harmlessly and making frequent high pitched tremulous sounds, similar to giggling.

(Lovey's just in for a wardrobe change & back out fast!)

Honey & Murray had a snowball fight, but she had a lot of rules! "Get up Daddy! Come closer Daddy. Don't move. and don't throw any snow at me!"

My friend Nicolle ended up taking the girls' Sunday School class today when there was a miscommunication about whose day it was & neither teacher was there. Afterwards she took the time to tell Murray & I about how impressed she was with the girls' behaviour and it was so nice to hear! We talk a lot at home about manners and behaving and being nice to others, sharing, doing as you're asked blah blah blah, the usual parental yammerings. While they're here, we can hold them accountable, dole out repercussions for infractions but you have to wonder, are they doing this stuff when you're not right there watching them? Even when we are, there are still lapses so who knows if they can hold it together when they're out of sight. It was so encouraging and I couldn't help my heart from filling with pride & happiness as she explained all the positives she sees in our kids.

Afterwards I called them into my room and told them all the nice things Nicolle had told me and it meant a lot to them. They are so eating up the praise these days and often work hard to impress and do well so I thought they should know how pleased we were with them! It was cute to watch their faces as I remained serious as I explained what had impressed her the most and saw the little smiles of satisfaction and their eyes light up. I asked them how they thought that made me feel. Sweetie said "happy????" and I said yes. Then I asked how it made them feel. They said "happy" and "proud". Gotta reinforce that wherever I can!

And since it's Sunday and all, I thought I'd leave you with something that I find very meaningful and moving! Keep it in mind as you go through the week out in the big bad world :) I've watched it dozens of times & just find this message so powerful, especially as a mother of young girls.