A Yearly Glimpse

I don't often post pictures of myself. It must be becoming a tradition though, as I showed you a glimpse of me around this time last year. I forced everyone in my family to do a "self-portait" with me in the snow yesterday and here are the results.

Shovelling Snow

Last night, Ben & I were outside shovelling snow off our driveway. Every few minutes, Isaac would come outside to talk about Pokemon with Ben. Each time, he'd open the garage door and let the cold air into the house and I'd have to close it straight away. After a few times, Ben came up with a condition to slow down the opening and closing. "Isaac, before you ask me a question you have to shovel some snow." I was surprised that this didn't deter him. He'd come out, shovel about 5 scoops of snow and ask his question.

Isaac is allergic to grass pollen - so as a teenager he won't be given the job of mowing the lawn. However, I can see the future. He'll be shovelling our driveway each year.

Beanies

We had snow yesterday. Lots of it, for us anyway. Ben & I measured 7 inches just before shovelling the drive way.

Of course, the kids wanted to go outside and make a snowman. The only condition was they rugged up, because the temperature was below freezing. I suggested to Lizzy that she should wear a beanie under her snow jacket because she'd feel warmer.

A few minutes later she came back and said "I found a beanie". I could see something under her hat but I wasn't quite sure what it was. It definately was not a beanie. Instead she had found a ziplock plastic bag which I had filled with dried beans the other day. She had carefully put it on the top of her head.

I was not surprised when she asked me "What's a beanie?" after I removed her bag of beans. "A winter hat, love - go find a winter hat. That's what I call a beanie."

A Cold Snap

We're experiencing a bit of a cold snap here. The saying "Arctic wind" is a literal term right now. We've got cold air coming down from the north and we woke up to -10 this morning. I'm not expecting to see the temperature above freezing even during the day for the next week. However, much to the kid's delight, we are expecting snow. You've got to take the good with the bad, I suppose.

Happy Birthday Isaac

Today was Isaac's birthday.

He's had a great day. He wanted a Pokemon/Star Wars birthday - not exactly themes that go well together but we managed. We had pokemon plates & napkins and some Star Wars balloons. For the cake I placed some Pokemon and Star Wars figures opposite each other, and told him it was a battle between the two. He was happy with that, and told me that the Pokemon definately would have been the winners.

For dinner, we went out to Chuck E Cheese. Think pizza parlour with a games arcade. If Isaac or Lizzy are ever invited to a party there again, I'm sending Ben. I've been to two parties there with the kids. Each time you play a game, you can win tickets. The kids and I usually win about 100 tickets (if I'm lucky). Ben, however, was quite the expert and helped us win over 600 tickets. Isaac was thrilled that he was able to choose 3 prizes at the end of the night.

He told me that he had an EXCELLENT day. That's what we wanted for him, so I'm happy.

Happy Birthday to our young man. Photos to follow, hopefully!

Presenting for the first time...

our newest family member - debuting in their first photo.

I love the little button nose.

Everyone has to wait until April though, to find out if baby a boy or girl.

Disembarkation

When we arrived home today, Ben announced "Everyone Disembark". And suddenly from the back, we hear "woof, woof".

Ahhh...somehow I think someone didn't hear right.

Edited to add that I've been told I've created some confusion today! Lizzy must have only heard "Everyone bark" and started to bark like a dog. No new animals in our household!

Shopaholic

Our daughter is a shopaholic. There is no other word for it. She does not need to be shopping for herself although this is the preferred outcome. Today I went shopping for a present for a baby shower. I barely had a moment to look for something as I was being constantly told "Mummy, look at this. Do you think she would like this?"; "Mummy, this is sooo pretty - can we buy this for the baby?"; "Do you think our baby would like this one?; We could buy this for our baby and the baby we are going to see!"; "Look Mummy, it's a SALE!!!!".

Nearly every shopping expedition lately has become like this - whether it's buying clothes for me and my expanding belly ("Mummy, look this is green. Green is your favorite color - do you like it?") or whether it's for groceries ("Mummy, look it says it's on sale!"; Look Mummy, it says buy one get one free!) Ahh - the joys that come when a child learns to read!

I complained to Ben today that I don't know where she learnt to shop like she does - shopping is certainly not a favorite occupation of mine. He claims it's a recessive gene that comes from a certain grandmother ;-)

5 years ago today

We welcomed a little girl into our lives...

It's amazing where 5 years have taken us...

Happy Birthday Lizzy!

Kindergarten Plans

Yesterday, Lizzy informed me that she was going to go to Kindergarten where she currently goes to preschool. I gently let her know that she was actually going to attend where Isaac goes to school.

The bottom lip dropped and the wail came "But they have music lessons at our Kindergarten. I want to go to music lessons."

I was very thankful that Isaac was with me when this conversation happened because he piped up and told her that he also has music lessons at school and that he went two times a week. This led into a conversation between the two of them about when they had music lessons. Isaac proudly told her that his lessons were after lunch and that they lined up outside the music room. (This is more than he ever tells me, so I was greatly interested.)

All of Isaac's information cheered her up greatly and she now wants to go to the public school again. Whew....tears avoided thanks to a big brother.

Shake that Boody

Lizzy has a new toothbrush. It's called a Tooth Tunes toothbrush and it sings for the amount of time she is supposed to brush. Her toothbrush sings "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book. It's quite a funny sight, for she now happily cleans her teeth with her bottom stuck out and a little tail shaking happening.

Who's cooking are we talking about?

I was about to cook sausages the other morning for breakfast and had just put them in the fry pan when Lizzy asked "Are they burnt yet?".

Considering Ben usually is the one who makes a cooked breakfast, I'm going to blissfully think that she was making a comment on Ben's cooking skills.

Halloween

Big brother worship is strong in our household. Once Isaac had chosen his halloween costume, there was no convincing Lizzy to be anyone but Princess Leia.

And another - as proof as to who really is under that mask!

Can I tell you something?

This is a phrase we hear from Isaac quite often, especially when talking to someone he doesn't know too well. Usually, when we hear this we know he's about to tell someone about Pokemon.

However, on Friday, he met Lizzy's Kindermusik teacher for the first time. During stamp time, he went up to her and said the usual "Can I tell you something?" I was thinking we were about to hear about Pokemon again when he said "My mummy has a baby in her tummy. We're going to have a baby after my birthday."

I've got to say I was taken by surprise as he's not usually one to give out too much information. It's sort of nice to know that a new baby and Pokemon rank up at the same level of interest.

Authors

My kids love reading. Last night we were reading and we spoke about how the person who wrote the book was called the Author, a fact that Isaac told me he already knew.

Despite his vast amount of knowledge on what an author is, he was a little confused about our author for the night. Her name was Barbara someone and he wanted to know if she cut hair as well as wrote books. I had to explain that a Barber was someone who cut hair while Barbara was a girls name.

Reasons

It's Isaac's teacher's birthday next week. As a present, one of the mothers is putting together a poster board about what the students like about their teacher. Each child has been given a card on which they have to write something.

This is Isaac's card...

I like everything about Ms McCathern. I like her because she gives me twice as much work as in Kindergarten.

I couldn't help but smile and appreciate his love for learning.

Made in China

Ben is going to China in a few weeks time. As a result Lizzy has been taking interest in anything about China.

The other day she suddenly yells out to us "This is made in China!". Ben & I smile at each other - what a little smarty we have, being able to read the label. However, we both laughed when a few minutes later she exclaims "Everything is made in China!" How true. Isn't it ironic when a 4 year old makes such a profound statement about our buying habits. Maybe we need to start looking harder for presents that are made in the USA.

Some glimpses of Alaska

We did a cruise to Alaska a couple of weeks ago. It was an awesome trip, enjoyed by the whole family. If you ever make your way over here, I'd definately recommend it.

I have not yet downloaded all my photos, but here are just some glimpses of Alaska.

This first photo is of Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. The second is of the kids touching some glacial ice. It's hard to believe that it's the middle of summer in these photos.

Whale watching in Skagway was awesome. Unfortunately my photography wasn't very good, and most of my shots were out of focus. We even saw these whales breech (jump completely out of the water) which is apparently rare in Alaska. My photo of this happening is terrible though, so you have to content yourselves with my most in focus photo.

I have so many more, but I'll post them on another day.

Grade 1

Isaac started grade 1 yesterday. I asked him today if he liked being in grade one - his response...

"It's better than kindergarten even though I don't get to play with the toys anymore".

Mt St Helens

We have just recently come back from 4 days at Mt St Helen's (or more precisely, a state park just near by). It was quite awesome to see the volcano up close, and to see the devastation that is still evident 27 years after it's eruption.

This first picture is one of the first glimpses we got of the volcano. Mt St Helens is the hazy mountain with the flat top in the background.

We stopped at a lookout part way along the road, and took these photos with Mt St Helens in the background.

This is the closest we were able to go to the volcano. I took this picture at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which is the last visitor center you can get to. The entire front (north) of the mountain is completely wiped out, due to the blast going out to the side instead of straight up.

If you'd like to read about the history of Mt St Helens and the 1980 eruption, you can see read about it at ... http://www.mt-st-helens.com/history.html

What amazed me is that you could see evidence still of the blast. They grouped the blast zone into 3 different zones. The first zone was about 6 miles around the volcano and it was called the Tree Removal Zone. As guessed by the name, the trees in this zone were totally destroyed. These next photos are from this zone, and as you can see there are still tree stumps left and the vegetation is slowly returning.

The next zone was the tree down zone, which was from about 6-18 miles. In this zone, the force of the blast knocked huge trees down as though they were blades of grass. Lastly was the standing dead zone which was from about 18-24 miles. In this last zone, the heat of the blast killed the vegetation but the tree trunks stayed upright.

Ben was most facinated by the "silent" zone. The people in the immediate vicinity of the blast did not hear a thing when the volcano erupted. However, people a few hours away reported hearing sounds that resembled thunder or sonic booms.

All in all, I loved this camping trip. I've been wanting to see Mt St Helens since we moved here and it certainly met my expectations. The scenery was definately different from what I've ever seen before.

I'll leave you with this last photo of the Toutle River. The river is actually very small, but the devastation around it makes it look huge from the distance. (I'm guessing that the mud flow followed the river path)