Acorn time

Just for fun, we brought Acorn home from school with us yesterday! No special occasion, we just hadn't had her over in awhile. They played after they got home and then it was time for tacos!

After supper they made their own ice cream sundae waffle bowls. Exciting! I picked up a bunch of toppings at the bulk store and they had a field day, sauces, gummies, sprinkles, cherries, the whole nine yards. I have to say mine was pretty tasty and they seemed equally fond of theirs!

Good fun and good eats, perfect BFF night!

Ice, Ice Baby!

Murray has worked very hard to get a backyard rink ready for us to use! A lot of digging, shaping, packing down and flooding, flooding and more flooding! As a result we've been able to go out for several evening skates. Lovey and Honey have practiced their "lifters" (shooting a puck and getting it up off the ground, still in progress but an exciting goal for hockey players). Sweetie likes to practice her twirls and jumps and we've had to forbid cartwheels in the interest of public safety as well as her own!

The recent mild weather is not ice friendly though. It's still holding so far but if that nice little polar vortex doesn't come beck soon I think we're in trouble!

That's the spirit!

Lovey is concerned about her cereal supply. Apparently someone is over quota on their portions!!! Ahhhh the holidays are a time of sweet sisterly sharing!

NYE 2013

Party time! Grammie and Grandad keep coming back for more fun and games at our house. We're really liking this retirement business! :)))

We had some supper and cleaned up and then Murray and I decided to take advantage and snuck off for a ski date out on the groomed trails which are so much nicer than the ones we have to keep breaking in our neighbourhood! I'd also gone snowshoeing with some friends earlier in the day so my legs got a good workout that day! After all the Christmas treats, it was much needed anyway though.

After skiing we got back in time for some popcorn and Uno! Grammie and Grandad left before midnight but the girls kept going. Honey almost dropped out around 11 but by the time she actually got finished getting ready for bed, it was pretty close to midnight and she decided to hang in there!

Everyone made it to see 2014 come in and no tantrums that night!

Sleepover!

Sweetie had been asking about a sleepover a lot in the last month. When could she go on one? When could she have one? What did she have to do to get one???? What if she was really good? When? When? When??? We remained non committal and didn't promise anything. She decided she'd just do her best to be all round "good" and see where it landed her. She started being more helpful around the house and doing things without being asked. She stopped arguing with her sisters as much (nobody's perfect right?). She compromised when the three of them were in disagreement and looked for ways to settle disputes even if it meant giving up a window seat to keep the peace. She went out of her way to be more agreeable and patient. On the crazy hockey tournament weekend where she got dragged from place to place for most of her weekend, she never once moaned, groaned or complained! We decided THAT in itself deserved a reward and told her she could have a friend over. She was overjoyed and thrilled to invite Boo over to stay with her.

They played iPod games, worked on loom bracelets, watched a movie, stayed up late and then played some more the next day. Her sisters got to enjoy as much of it as she did which wasn't really fair since there had been tonnes of bickering and fighting between them and NO efforts on their part to curb it. Boo just wanted to play with everyone of course and was having fun doing what everybody was doing. Sweetie felt like her sleepover had been hijacked a bit and was disappointed that she didn't have Boo to play with alone. I decided she should have some one on one time with her guest and sent the two out to play and then do their chores while Sweetie and Boo played some Wii and did some other stuff on their own until lunch and Sweetie felt better.

"Next time I have a sleepover, can we do it while they have hockey?!???!?!??!"

Family Skate

Uncle Andrew had a great idea for the holidays this year! While we were in town, he rented a rink for an hour and the whole family went skating! The ice time was a little early (7am) and we had to get up even earlier to get ready and drive there & have time to lace up etc. We were all a little groggy and slow to leave our warm beds but once we got there it was SO MUCH FUN! There was so much space and everyone could do what they wanted. Some played a bit of hockey, took shots on net, some of us just did laps around and some just came to watch. Andrew invited his wife's family too and his brother in law's niece and nephew. It was a great group and even though it was an early start, everyone was happy to be there and enjoyed the time together.

I got lots of laps in and skated around talking to the kids and watched them zoom around. I also learned that taking pictures of people as you glide by tends to result in a lot of blur! Oops!

We were off the ice by 8 and all headed to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. We'd all worked up quite an appetite and enjoyed our meal!

Thank you Uncle Andrew, this was one of our favourite holiday moments this year!

Poppin' Good Time!

After all our Christmas travels were over, we had an evening at home to try out our new popcorn maker! It was exciting to fire it up and have movie style popcorn! We put on a movie and munched away to our heart's content!

I'm not sure what they do at the theatre but I haven't found the secret ingredients to get the same flavour of oil or kernels or something. So far it just tastes the same as popping it on the stove but it's way more fun this way! I'll have to find a friend who works there that can fill me in on the technique! Otherwise I've invested in an expensive space hogging, hard to clean pot! Oh well, it looks cool and is fun to use so it's earning its keep for now!