When Will Winter End?

Greetings from snowy Ottawa. We have been outdoors a lot lately but always with shovel in hand, so most of these pics are from inside. That being said, every night when we get home, the girls ask to "shovel driveway?" That wouldn't be so bad except their definition of shovelling is taking snow off the driveway and dumping it into the garage. We are also in the midst of having our basement finished, so there is a "before" picture listed for comparison. The girls also ask at least once a night to see the basement, to make sure they haven't missed anything. Well that's it for now, hopefully next time we post the snow will be melting. Bye for now - DoT

Chinese New Year and other events

Hi again,

So, it's been over a month since our last blog update. And we've been social butterflies. This year we went to two Lunar New Year parties. The truly wonderful thing about the parties this year is the fact that the girls had great times playing with all their little friends, and not clinging to DoT or I. That was a nice change from parties of the past.

Here are a few pictures from one of the parties. (I know I took my camera to the second party, too, but I can't seem to find any of my pictures from it.)

First, A climbing through a tunnel...

Next, both girls riding a toy horse...

And finally, the couch shot that needs to be taken anytime we have a get together...

Also this month, we had a visit from DoT's cousin Devan. The girls took to him right away, and were sorry to see him go. For the next couple of days they kept asking where Devan was and didn't really seem to understand why he'd want to go off back to school instead of staying to live with them. :-)

The other big news around here is that we are finishing our basement (or at least part of it). We've been wanting to do that for awhile, but haven't gotten to it. But push finally came to shove and we decided that it really is time to reclaim the house from all the toys that seem to have taken over it. So we're building (well I guess actually our contractors are building) a playroom, washroom and guest bedroom in the basement.

Well, that's it for tonight. I'll close off with the photo that went out on our Chinese New Year cards this year (which some of you have therefore already seen)..

Happy Year of the Rat!

K..

Happy New Year!

We're back. We had a great Christmas in southern Ontario this year. And, of course, the girls made out like bandits in the gift haul. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, caregivers, and friends from the daycare all had gifts for the girls (and, yes, DoT and I got a few gifts too). E and A had a fabulous time opening their gifts. It was really fun listening to them exclaim "wow!" when opening the presents, and they seemed to want to play with them all right away. And here we are two and a half weeks later and the gifts haven't lost their charm yet.

The following photos show the girls with one of their favourite gifts this year. Grandma and grandpa G bought them little, glittzy shoes and purses. There were three pairs of shoes and three matching bags. They just love putting on the shoes and clonking around the kitchen in them. Oh yes, the sunglasses were a popular gift, too.

Over the holidays, DoT also took the girls out sledding on the huge pile of snow we had from shovelling the driveway (we have a lot less snow now, after getting several days of rain). Here they are getting ready to tackle the hill (note: the concentration on DoT's face, evident from the tell-tale tongue)...

Then, at the bottom of the hill, where your ride comes to an abrupt end by running into the bank on the opposite side of the driveway. The girls seem to have enjoyed the ride... not so sure about DoT. :-)

And finally, one last shot of the happy family (without the photographer)...

Wishing you all a year of peace, health and happiness.

K...

Feliz Navidad!

Hi again all,

Another snow-filled day for us in eastern Ontario, but I understand it has hit southern Ontario pretty hard too. DoT was outside and shovelled our driveway earlier today (there was a lot of snow then), but as it was still snowing, and will continue through the night, it seems we'll be up early shovelling before work again tomorrow. Hopefully (probably), DoT will do it. I've been up with E for about 1.5 hours each night, in the middle of the night, the past two nights. I'm hoping tonight is better, but given that it is now after 10:00 p.m. and she is still up, it's not looking too good. So I'm feeling somewhat sleep deprived these days.

I've finally gotten around to uploading the video I took of A and E singing the ABCs. (Blogger now lets you upload a video directly (goodbye YouTube!). Just click on the video box below, and then click the "play" button.

Tonight after giving the girls a bath, I decided to cut their hair. I'm not sure why I thought that was a good idea. It might have had something to do with the fact that it cost me $10 per kid to have a hairdresser cut their hair the last time we did it, and it took her less than a minute to do it. So, I thought, how hard can it be. Well, it turns out A and E don't care much for sitting still, no matter how much I beg, plead, or threaten. So, I cut their hair in less than a minute too. And I don't think it turned out too badly. Maybe tomorrow I'll take a couple pictures of them and let you be the judge.

Given my posting history of late, it's doubtful I'm going to get another blog update here before Christmas. So, I'll leave you with this picture and wish all of you a Merry Christmas, and a very Happy 2008!

What are they up to now?

Hi again all you with stamina, able to go long periods between posts and still keep checking this site. :-)

We are digging ourselves out of a snow storm here in eastern Ontario. Over the last couple of days we've gotten a lot of snow... I'm not sure how much, but I've heard other people say something about 40 centimetres. I'm not sure if we got that much, or if that was what was forecast, but looking outside I could believe we got 40 centimetres. I don't really mind since it puts me a bit more into the Christmas spirit, but I think come January I'll be ready for all the snow to disappear.

We have had our Christmas tree up for about a week now. I put it up in November, even though I generally try to avoid it that early. But this year I decided that whenever I felt like putting up the tree, I'd go for it. The girls are quite enjoying it. Or should I say they're enjoying taking ornaments and tinsel off of the tree and spreading them around the house. And they like the lights. Every morning when we come downstairs, they insist that we turn on the Christmas tree lights.

I've realized lately, when I've gone back and re-read some of our posts, that we have been resorting to putting up pictures of the girls, and not really saying too much about what they have mastered, or what they're doing these days. That's fine, since I know that most of you are really only here for the pictures, but I do want to save this blog for the girls when they're older, and I think it might be nice for them to know a bit about what they were doing as two year-olds. (This is my excuse for not having created baby books, or life books, for them.) So I'm going to try to give a bit more information about them in the posts.

So, where to start? Well, they are both turning into chatterboxes. We only understand about half of what they say, but it's getting better. They are now speaking in phrases or short sentences. Most common are:

• "Doin, daddy?" (i.e., what are you doing, daddy?),


• "where's grandpa/grandma" (my folks left yesterday after a short visit),


• "no! me do it!" (i.e. hands off, I want to do it myself), followed shortly thereafter by "I did it!",


• "where's the baby (or whatever other toy they are hiding behind their backs)?" followed closely by "there she/it is",
  
• "I got it" (when they drop something, and want to pick it up themselves, or when they are willing to pick up something for their sister -- note: this does not translate into picking up their toys when it's time to put them away),


• "I find it" (note: they play pretty loosely with the word "I". It must be like the royal "we", since whenever they can't find a particular toy and DoT or I find it for them, they run around proudly proclaiming "I find it!" (meaning "I found it"),


• "Have fun", and


• "Hold tight".

They are also quite physical. They love racing around the house, and scream at full volume if daddy chases them. They are also into climbing these days. A is still a bit taller than E and can just manage to get herself up onto the couch by herself. E needs a bit of help usually, but will occasionally manage it herself. They also both get themselves up into their booster seats at meal time. But unfortunately instead of climbing up into their chairs and sitting down in them, lately they've taken to standing up in them and bouncing up and down.

A has pretty much mastered her colours. E seems to have more trouble with them, but sometimes I think she is just playing with us. Most time's she'll confidently shout out a colour if I ask her what colour her shirt/pants/a picture is, and 99 percent of the time she's wrong. But then occasionally she gets them all right. Maybe it's luck, but when she rhymes off three or four correct answers in a row, it seems like she's getting it. But then the next day we go back to getting them all wrong. I must say though, it's pretty cute when she shouts out "blue" for almost everything. It seems she fully expects that she's right, no matter how many wrong answers she gets. I hope that confidence stays with her.

They are both very much into slides, school buses, garbage trucks, fire trucks (note: anything with a siren is a firetruck to them), snowmen, and (still) the doodlebops. Oh and airplanes - as long as they're not flying over when they are in bed, as this seems to be a problem for them. Go figure. Oh yeah, and helicopters. And they like to sing -- favourite songs are "Twinkle, twinkle little star", the abc's song, and "Oh, Canada". I'll try to get a video of them singing sometime. I took one a few weeks back, but I was singing along with them and all you could hear was me, since I was also holding the camera. And there was no way I was putting that up on this blog.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I often think, when they do or say something funny, that I should put that on the blog. But then I forget what these cute/funny things were. I'll try to post more regularly (I know, you've heard that before), and maybe more of them will make it onto the blog. For today, though, I'll leave you with a few pictures...


We're trying to make the girls into Dr. Seuss fans. Check out these cute shirts which you might think DoT brought back from his recent trip to Universal Studios theme park. Go ahead and ask him about it. :-)

Evidence of A's climbing ability, and poor Abby's loss of a peaceful napping spot. (Don't let looks fool you. It may appear A was being "gentle" with Abby, but it didn't last.)

A, taking after her daddy, at the breakfast table.

And finally, a shot of the snow in our backyard. Makes you just want to come and visit Ottawa, doesn't it. :-)

Happy Christmas shopping, everyone. K.

P.S. For those who note the date and time of this post and may think that I'm slacking off on taxpayers' time -- I'm home sick today. And now I'm going back to bed.

Halloween

Hi everyone and Happy Halloween! We thought we'd put a few pictures of the girls up around this holiday. They didn't actually go door-to-door, as we were weren't sure if they would be upset being outside with all the strangers roaming around. As it turns out they had a good time rushing to the door each time someone came trick or treating. Other than being a little wound up at the end of the night (even without massive sugar intake) they seemed to take it all in stride. They wore the princess outfits on Halloween and the other costumes we got on sale later (we are covered for a few years now).


Two Chinese princesses












A as a penguin and E as a bunny (believe it or not, DoT is not in costume that is how I normally look)
















































I am cute (now give me some more candy)!
















I can't believe I ate them all! Whew!!










Eating goldfish from egg cups...











A mugging for the camera











E mugging for the camera

Proulx Family Pumpkin Festival

So, once again, far too much time has passed between posts. And, as always, I'm going to appease you with a whole pile of photos. This weekend we went to the Proulx Family Pumpkin Festival. Here are photos of a few of the things we did there...

Playing in the leaves...

















Jumping (and falling) ...

















Riding tractors...














... and climbing hay bales.
















And finally standing still enough to get our pictures taken...
















Happy fall everyone!