And So We Enter 2013

Well, here we are. It's 2013.
I managed to not post anything about Christmas, mostly because I was away, but partly because all of our Christmas photos are blurry cell-phone ones since our camera busted.

So, what happened in December (besides M's Birthday)? Here's a point form list...with some crappy photos.

Early December:
-Paul ruined Christmas by saying, point-blank "No." to G's question "Is Santa Real?"
-I cried
-G instantly forgot about it and still believes in Santa.

G's thoughtful expression here just kills me.

Mid-December:
-I anticipated a giant explosion of panic in the wake of having to pack/organize/clean before we left on the 19th
-The panic bomb did not explode! I managed to do it all without yelling at anyone (Paul).

-We traveled to see the majority of Paul's family in Ontario.
-G and her older cousin look amazingly alike. They look much more like sisters then G and M do. 

G on the left, F on the right.

-We took advantage of lots of free babysitting to see three movies in theatre.
-The three we saw were: Life of Pi, The Hobbit and Les Mis.
-They were all good, but Les Mis changed my life. I have never cried so much in a movie.


Late December:
 -G and M both got an amazing amount of gifts... we are so grateful for our generous relatives.
-Our love of My Little Pony has gotten a bit out of hand. With the addition of 7 new ponies, they now have no less than 25 ponies, plus a pony train.

-On Christmas Eve, my Father-in-Law convinced G to leave out a Beer and Cookies for Santa instead of Milk and Cookies. It was pretty funny.

The note reads: To Santa: Carrots are for Rudolph. Beer is for you.

-Paul and I celebrated New Years together with free babysitting, for the first time in a very long time.
-We went to Niagara Falls (along with 60,000 other people)
-It was an experience.

This was that experience.

I am a giant dork!

There's a giant waterfall behind me? I'd rather look at twitter.

Paul grew up in Niagara Falls, worked the Falls and on Clifton Hill, so he's a...bit jaded about the Falls/ However, he knows the beautiful, uncrowded views and where to park so they won't charge you $15/car. 
We watched a little bit of the concert, but it was pretty cheesy and Nelly Furtado was surprisingly bad for such a well-known singer. We wandered away and celebrated the New Year watching the fireworks emerge from three different places (including the US side, which appeared to get the New Year a minute later then Canada).

A couple of funny things happened as we walked back:

Canada Welcomes You... with the wrong flag!

This sign was on the Women's Washroom at the Falls. It made me laugh because "Frequently" is so very subjective. Frequently could mean...once an hour? Once a day? Once a month? Then it made me really laugh because this sign? NOT on the Men's Washroom.

Two Years Gone By

Two Years Ago:

One Year Ago:

Today:

Happy 2nd Birthday, M!

I can't believe it's been two years since M was born. She is a big girl now, into everything her sister is into. M knows lots of words now and her favourite sentence is "Read dis book!" Most of her C words start with the letter T, which makes them extra cute, especially when she's "told" and wants "tuddles".

We had a little party on Sunday with some grown-up friends and a cake. Our camera did us the honour of completely crapping out so all I have are some bad cell-phone pictures to commemorate the occasion. 

I made a Rainbow Butterfly Star Cake:

After making this cake, our electric beaters completely broke as well. So, it was a day for things to break, which is kind of appropriate in a way, considering how M loves to break stuff.

Welcome to 2, baby girl.  Here's to another year of your smiles, laughter and hugs. I can't get enough of them.

A Day in the Life (mostly in pictures)

I thought I would do a little tour of my life as a stay-at-home parent. I took these pictures in October, but haven't gotten around to putting them on my blog until now.

In the morning, Paul got up with the girls and fed them breakfast and we did our usual routine of attempting to stay in bed while getting up every five minutes to get the girls something. For some reason, we think this is better then just facing the day at 7. We were up by about 7:30. I changed M and got her dressed.

When I got to the kitchen, G and M were busy climbing the shelves looking for craft supplies.


I put the kettle on for coffee. My lifeblood.


Paul left for work to a chorus of "Bye-bye Daddy!" from all of us.


Breakfast consisted of an English Muffin with Marmite and coffee.


While I ate, I balanced a book about dinosaurs on my knee for M to look at and me to half-assed-ly read to her.


She really wanted the camera. WHY CAN'T I HAVE THE CAMERA!!?


After breakfast, it was time to get dressed. G wanted me to pick out her clothes (she usually does this herself). So, for today, they matched.


You're holding a camera! Let me pose for the camera!



By 9:30, I had the girls in the car.


We arrived at our playgroup and stayed for a few hours. Mostly, I drank coffee and talked to the other parents. Adult conversation is always at a premium when you're a stay-at-home parent.



I read a book to M. "Fish!" she says. "Fissssssssh" .


Home we went. I buckled the girls into their car seats again. I long for the days when my kids can do up their own seatbelts.




After lunch, the girls watched Blue's Clues.


While I put the beans on for supper.


And started doing some dishes.


I put the M down for her nap and G into our room for a quiet time, then went downstairs to put the laundry in.

Lots of Loonies and Quarters to make these machines go!


While the girls were quiet, I worked on a blog post.


Then I put the kettle on for some tea.


I barely got a chance to finish my blog post before G was out from her quiet time (I'm lucky if it lasts for half an hour these days). So I let her play some games online while I did more dishes.
While I was doing the dishes I broke a wine glass. Glassware hates me, I swear. It leaps from my hands. Paul does it to, but I'm a bit worse. I would say I have broken no less then 10 glasses (wine or drinking) in the past year.


I did a bunch more dishes, then remembered my kettle, which I then re-boiled and made my tea. While it was steeping, I went downstairs and moved the wash into the dryer.
I took advantage of this moment to sit and drink my tea and read a bit of my book.


I read about 5 pages before Maggie was awake. She was very unhappy to be awake.


So I gave her some rainbow goldfish crackers.


If you give an M some goldfish crackers, G has to have some too.


While they snacked, I wrote my meal plan for the next few weeks, so I'll know what to buy when I go shopping tomorrow.


M was much happier.


I started supper (bean burritos).

Then I remembered we had no cheese and that was unacceptable. So, I called Paul to see when he was coming home. He was feeling sick and crappy today, so he was happy to come home half an hour early.


The girls were so excited to watch him come home. This was when it was light outside when he got home. It's sad and dark at 4:30 now.


I ran out to Sobey's to get cheese (and avocados).


And when I came home, we ate supper.

Finally, a picture of me!


Not long after supper was bathtime, then pajamas for the girls. They wrestled with their Daddy, post-bath.


Then put toys away, had a snack and went to bed.


I waited for a pregnant friend of mine to pick up a bag of baby clothes I'm getting rid of.


Then I watched Walking Dead and (eventually) went to bed.

Birds of the not-angry variety

Speaking of birds, G has decided to "study" birds recently. The fact that Paul is studying has started to influence her play, and she keeps coming up with new things to study. Recently, it has been firefighters, space and birds.

We like to get books out of the library on whatever subject she's interested in, and watch videos (mostly on ARKive.org, a fantastic site for animal videos), play games and look at pictures online.

The other morning, she decided she wanted to draw pictures of birds and, as she said, quiz me on them.
She drew the following five pictures, while continually saying "Don't look, Mommy! Don't look!"

Emu, Macaroni Penguin, Owl, Bald Eagle, Parrot

Then she proceeded to hide them behind her back one at a time and ask questions like this:

"This bird has a very long neck. Is it a crow, an emu or a seagull?"
 "This bird has very, very colourful feathers. Is it a heron, a ostrich or a parrot?"

I am proud of my score of 4/5. It was a tough quiz.

Ethics of Angry Birds

G: Why are the birds so angry at the pigs?
Me: Because it's the name of the game.
G: But why are they so angry at the pigs?
Me: Because... the pigs stole their eggs and they're mad about that.
G: But why don't the Birds just say "Please give us our eggs back" And the Pigs say "I'm sorry, here you go" and the Birds say "I forgive you."

Me:...I don't know. That would be a much nicer thing to do. But then there wouldn't be a game.