First Snow Day of the Season

This week, we got winter. I drove home from my Wednesday bible study with barely a few flakes. When I went to bed around midnight, the ground was pretty much bare.
When I woke up at 7am on Thursday morning, this is what I saw:

Over the course of Thursday, almost 30cm of snow fell. The university was closed, so Paul stayed home for the day.

There is something about snow days that makes me want to make them awesome. There are many regular days when I'm at home the majority of the day, but on a day when the snow is so thick that there's not a chance of going anywhere, I want to do fun indoor things.
So, after making a great snowman out of the super-sticky snow:

 We made salt dough ornaments to go on our Christmas tree (going up this Sunday!).

(Eagle-eyed readers may spot the Mario-inspired ornament) 

Salt-dough ornaments are super fun and easy. They turned out better then I thought. G was very excited about them, even when we told her they were not for eating.

(Please excuse my lack of food-photography skills.) 

I made doughnuts for the first time! They were super tasty.  I recently acquired a candy/deep fry thermometer and it made all the difference to this endeavor.

Of Christmastime and Thereafter

So, Christmas happened, and New Years and Epiphany... and now here I am, it's January somethingth and I'm officially at home with TWO girls. So far, it's been good. M eats and sleeps and poops and spits up, G eats and sleeps and talks and talks and talks...
Christmas was a great and relaxing time in Ontario, even though we did spend a good part of it sick with the flu (we were asleep before midnight on New Years). I'm really glad that I had time with my parents here and then two weeks with Paul's parents so that the adjustment to a new baby at home alone was after a full month. Having two kids is definitely an adjustment, but it's also so much easier since I feel much more confident this time. I am not stressed out to leave the house without M. In fact, it was fantastic to go to the grocery store by myself yesterday.  It's also great for Paul to get a chance to be at home with the girls by himself, even if it's just an hour.
Not that it's all sunshine and roses. G seems to pick every time I'm feeding M (which, granted, is often) to want to do something that requires my hands. She'll ask for a snack, a story, for me to play with her in exactly the way she wants to be played with and get a bit frustrated when the answer is "in a minute". But, I keep congratulating her when she's patient and playing with her when I can.
Her new toys are great for distraction. She got a very fun new play kitchen for Christmas, and we got her an adorable fake sushi set, so she makes dinner in her little kitchen while I'm making mine.

One of her new toys is a doctor's kit, which she loved - in fact, it was the hit of the family Christmas, most of her cousins also played with it. The best part is that she will take the stethoscope and go around listening to people's hearts, except she heard heartbeats as heartbeeps, so she'll put the stethoscope on your chest (or any other random body part) and loudly say "BEEP!". It's pretty hilarious.

A followup to our new 12-days of Christmas tradition - it went quite well. I divided two boxes worth of Smarties into little origami boxes, which were in her shoe outside her door each morning. I don't think G really got the meaning, she was just excited to eat Smarties before breakfast, but it's the beginning of something she can expect every year. I think in the future, I'll try mix up what they get every day, so it's not just the same thing. I don't want to add too much extra stress to future holidays, so my hope is to keep it pretty simple.

What's on the horizon this month? Buying our very first car, since the bus strike continues (2 months and counting!).

2010, Quite the Year

As we come to the end of 2010, I can't believe how much has changed this year.

At the start of this year, we were feeling like we would be moving in August to whoever accepted Paul into a PhD program. He had applied at 10 different schools, so we were pretty optimistic. It was a difficult time as the rejection letters started coming in. We had heard from almost everyone and started making alternate plans - to stay in Winnipeg, to travel, for Paul to find some temporary work -  when we finally heard from Memorial University in May. We went from "we're likely staying" to "we're definitely moving to St. John's" within the span of a week. It was an overwhelming time!
In the midst of this, we decided we wanted to have another child - a sibling for G that was close to her age. I assumed that it might take some time, but pretty much the moment we even considered trying, I was pregnant. We were (and are) thrilled, but in the future, I may plan a bit better then December!

If I could choose a word to describe 2010, it would be bittersweet. Leaving our friends and our church in Winnipeg was incredibly hard and emotional. Selling all our stuff (except what would fit in 11 boxes and 5 suitcases) was very hard, but also very freeing. It was painful to let go of our books, and those are the possessions I miss the most. We had brought together our two libraries when we got married, and had built it up over the past 6 years to over 300 books. We kept about 60.
I left my job of the past seven years with the library to move to St. John's. It was difficult to do, but it was a decision I had made years earlier when Paul started to pursue graduate work - so it's not a decision I regret, but I do miss the work and my co-workers.

Of course, this year also had the death of my grandfather, which I wrote about on this blog. I continue to mourn him, especially at Christmastime. One of the Sufjan Stevens Christmas songs that we play often this season has a line "Call your Grandma on the phone, if she's living all alone" and this year it made me cry. I have gone from three living grandparents to one in a very short time. 

In the "sweet" part of bittersweet, the birth of M was a wonderful event and as I wrote earlier, ended up having perfect timing. Being pregnant and now having a newborn has helped in fostering new friendships in St. John's. I went to the drop-in gym last week and two moms were very excited to see me with the new baby.   It has also been sweet to see the temperature in the prairies dip below -20C, while we were still sitting at a balmy +10C!
We have also found that God has been amazing at providing for us - we were shorter on money then we expected when we moved here, and somehow there were multiple small blessings to get us through. From finding a perfect apartment to our caretaker suddenly showing up with heaps of clothing for G to unexpected funds from various sources to our new church being extremely welcoming and friendly, we are in awe of how God provides and gives us more then we need.

And now, on to 2011, hopefully more new friendships in our new city, raising two girls and hopefully buying a car (and some freedom) soon.

This Has Gotten Out of Hand

G loves stuffed animals. She really, really loves them. In the beginning, there was one favourite- Lambert. He's a lamb, he's small and he was a perfect thing to drag around. Then, Bear (aka Edward Bear, aka Pooh Bear) joined the list of favourites, and she would be satisfied with either of those two at night, or when we went out.

Now, she has no less then ten animals that can be slept with, taken with her when we go places, lined up around the house, fed, diapered and dressed and most especially, demanded at any specific time. I'm a little nervous that she's going to be babysat one of these days and the sitter will have no clue which animal she is wanting to sleep with. Some of the names are obvious - Frog, Puppy, Dinosaur, Monkey - others are a bit more confusing.
"Boston" is a teddy, a very dilapidated and frankly, frightening teddy bear. He was Paul's childhood bear, actually originally belonging to his older brother. He has no eyes or features to speak of, is falling to bits, stuffing coming out everywhere, and is so worn, I can't even sew the holes without some very serious patchwork. I would love to throw him out, but he would be missed.
"Florence The Lamb" is not that confusing, but G tends to blend her name into "YawenceDaYam", which I don't expect anyone but me to understand.
The best of all is Octopus.
This is Octopus:

Yeah, he's a peacock. G knows he is bird, she knows he is a peacock. But his name is Octopus. I'm not even sure she knows what a real octopus looks like.

This stuffed animal thing has gotten out of hand.

But we don't have a baby doll. Or a cat. Or a bunny. And I want all those things for her.
So, perhaps it's me who has gotten out of hand.

Getting used to the SAHM Thing

While Paul struggles a bit with the working dad thing, I'm trying my best at the Stay-at-home Mom thing. My sister gave me a fabulous book called A Mother's Rule of Life. It has been really inspirational to me in making a routine, putting God first and sorting out exactly what staying at home means to me.
I try to have a set routine in the day: Mornings we go out (either to a playgroup or gym, the library, the mall or to get groceries), afternoons are naptime (sometimes for me as well) and I try to get cleaning done. After naptime, I make supper and spend my evenings with Paul.
A key part of my day (and I admit I don't always do it) is right after G goes down for her nap. I make myself a cup of coffee or tea and sit and read the bible. I've been following the Daily Office in the Book of Alternative Services, which includes and Old Testament, a New Testament and a Gospel reading. If you do it every day for 2 years (maybe 3 years?), you'll read the entire bible.

One of the results of growing up in the church is that you get to adulthood feeling like you "know" the bible. I know all the stories, I know the books and what they're about, I even have chunks memorized, but I actually don't read it. I have really found myself rediscovering the Bible this past month. The readings are in order within a book, so I am currently reading a little bit of the book of Acts every day as my NT reading. It feels like every day ends on this cliffhanger! What's going to happen to Paul this time? Will he be able to escape the hundreds of people wanting to kill him? It's enough to make me go back and read what I missed if I forget to read every day. Sometimes I don't get much insight, and I admit that the minor prophets feel pretty "doom and gloom and lightning bolts", but much of the time, I see the text with new eyes, discovering not only insight, but humour!
The day is better when I take time to pause, relax and read, and it gives me just that little boost I need to keep  going. And it's not just the caffeine.