Adele's latest achievements

Recently Adele has been more insistent on using her walker or walking and holding my hand to get around rather than crawling. She will hang onto my leg and yell "want to walk!". This weekend we went to the park and she walked all the way across the wobbly bridge a bunch of times even though she was scared to at first and Fiona was not making her task any easier!



Later that evening we went to a restaurant near our house for some fries and she decided that she wanted to walk home instead of riding in the stroller and walked almost .4 miles. It was amazing!



She is so determined and proud of herself!

Introducing...

Some of you know that Fiona was a very reluctant potty trainee. She finally decided she was going to use the potty a couple of weeks before her fourth birthday but in the process I was willing to do almost anything to convince her that potty was good. She loves all kinds of animals from the creepiest to the cutiest and one day in a fit of desperation I told her that if she would use the potty she could have a hamster.

So just so you know - if your kid is not potty trained by almost 4 and you say something like this to them... they will remember.

So this weekend, after talking about it for a while, we added two new family members to our menagerie. They're not hamsters - after some research I decided these would hopefully make better, more rewarding pets for her, and they like to live in groups of at least 2, so we had to get a pair...

of...

rats.

Yes, rats.

I know. But hear me out. They are super cute. They're larger and therefore harder to lose. They're the cleanest of all the rodents. They are really smart and you can teach them tricks. They are much less likely to bite than other rodents, and they are social, so they actually enjoy being around people.

So, introducing our two little rattie girls - Zak and Wheezy. Fiona named them after the two headed dragon in dragon tales. Zak is the lower, grey one and Wheezy is more fawn coloured.
















See? CUTE!!

We're slowly working on socializing them - Fiona is desperate to get in there and hold them but I don't want to traumatize them. Zak is a little calmer and adventurous, and Wheezy is more cautious, but they have both been willing to poke their heads out of their safety hammock to take treats from Fiona's sweaty little hand.

Fiona is completely in love with them and I think she's old enough to help with training, feeding, cleaning etc. so I'm hoping this will be a useful learning experience.

Now we're just hoping Monty will get over the excitement and give up his cageside vigil.

Fiona is 4

Once upon a time, after a long and fairly traumatic labor, the loveliest baby was born.

















And now that baby is four years old. FOUR.

Four.

My brain can't quite adjust to that fact, so I won't dwell on it.

For the last month (at least) every morning she has asked us if it's her birthday yet, and why her birthday takes SO LONG! You can imagine her joy that today was the day.

We began the day with some presents and then Ben went off to work and we had pancakes.

Then after pancakes came brownie making.

After pancakes and brownie making came baths. Anything involving chocolate and syrup is pretty much guaranteed to lead to a bath.

Then we headed to the library with some awesome friends. Fiona's friends Annabelle and baby Penelope have been out of town for a couple of weeks so it was great to see them.

Adele enjoyed this Garfield book.

Library was followed by lunch at target. Then we braved the downpour and sprinted to the car to head home so Adele could take a nap and Fiona could work on one of her presents - a paint-your-own piggybank.

Masterpiece!!

We also chatted with Granny and Grandpa and Aunty Ali on Skype, which was fun.

After that Adele got up and we headed off to our second social engagement of the day.

Another favorite baby friend - Ethan.With favorite adult friend Tanya.
















We brought some cookies and the aforementioned brownies and my super talented friend Gena and Fiona's friend Aubrey made these awesome martini cookies! (Does not contain actual martini.)

THEN we headed home for birthday Pizza and... CUPCAKES!! All Fiona wanted for dinner was cupcakes so after declaring she was done after a few little pizza bites I gave up and we lit the candles.

Yum.

Yum.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.


















Then a few more presents, and a couple of scooby doo episodes before off to bed.

I don't know about Fiona but I am completely exhausted!

I feel so lucky to get to spend time with this little girl who seems to be growing up so fast. She is smart and quick and kind and loving.

Here's a story. The four of us went for a walk together a week or so ago and decided to stop on the way home and share an ice cream cone, one of Fiona's favorite things (can you tell the girl is a bit of a sugar fan?). After we got there we discovered that Ben had forgotten his wallet and I had not brought mine. Fiona thought it was funny at first in an "oh, silly Daddy" kind of way until it dawned on her that this meant no ice cream, at which point she burst into tears. A very, very kind person, seeing how upset she was, gave us $2 to get her some ice cream, and she was very happy and grateful. On the way home, while licking the strawberry cone that she chose, and shared with Adele, she told us that next time Daddy should be sure to bring his wallet so that we can give $2 to someone else who forgot theirs so they can have ice cream too.

And that's the Fiona I love so much. The part that walks backwards singing "Peppa Pig" to encourage Adele to get from A to B with her walker. The part that cheers for her when she arrives. The part that wants to help and share and learn and is so excited about new things, and really disgusting things and things in general, like looking up different kinds of dogs and spiders and snakes and dinosaurs and baby birds hatching out of eggs on the internet. That's the Fiona I love to snuggle with. Happy Birthday my sweet big four year old girl.

Pictures with brief descriptions

I uploaded the pictures from the camera and I don't have much to say but here are a few pictures and brief descriptions of what we've done in the last few weeks.

Birdhouse painting. I don't know much about birds but I have to assume these houses are for pretty tiny birds. Hummingbirds maybe.

Taking walks and looking for ducks. Fiona likes to quack a them when she finds them because she thinks they will understand what she's saying. Because she's speaking in duck. She does the same for dogs.

Earning their keep! They love to clean and dust. I encourage that. Here's Adele making her MAD FACE.

Riding bikes! Fiona graduated to cousin Emily's old big girl bike. She's actually really fast, I have to run to keep up and you know how much I like running. Zero. I like running zero. But Fiona loves to ride her bike so I do it. She yells at me to go faster, it's like having a mean personal trainer but for FREE!!

Adele's still slightly to short for the tricycle but she likes to sit on it while Ben pushes. It's a good balance exercise for her.

Library! We love books.

Lake walks rewarded with ice cream cones! 

And last, but by no means least, Goslings!

Fiona was so happy to meet these little fluff balls on a walk with friends. Makes a nice change from worms!

Kitchen!

As usual, a lot has happened since I last posted. Most excitingly, my cousin Catherine visited and after months of procrastination and detail changing we finally made our final decisions and got the great kitchen renovation going.

Having Catherine here was really wonderful. Either she was really happy to play with the girls non stop, or she was really good at faking it, but either way she could not have come at a better time and I was able to get a lot of work done and kitchen stuff done while she entertained my darling children. She probably needed a holiday after this holiday, but I was happy to take advantage of her kindness ;-)

She's not a fan of being in photos, so here are a couple of the girls, who were super excited about the presents she brought...

Thanks for visiting, Catherine! We loved having you and we miss you!

In kitchen news! It's almost done. In theory I was going to post a picture every day of the progress. Obviously that worked out.

So here's the sequence of events.

1. Emptied out the cupboards, cleared off the counters. We are, of course, doing this at midnight the night before constructions starts.

BEFORE:

Day 1. Wall comes down.

Days 2 and 3: Drywall, taping, plaster, painting...

Days 4 and 5: New counters and stove (not really blue, but almost gave me a heart attack when I saw it like this). Cabinets are re-hung.

Day 6: Tile backspash, bar top, pendant lights.

Day 7: Grout, touch-ups.

In the days after this we were able to put stuff back and get it all re-organized. In the process I found that we had 9 different containers with some kind of salt in them. And now, looking at this picture I realize the one we actually use is missing, so that makes 10. We were well overdue for a cupboard clear-out.

I also put together some bar stools, which Fiona loves. And then, finally, it was mostly done.

There are some final details to do and some tiling by the back door, and Ben and I have to finish painting the kitchen, but it's almost complete. It's complete enough to post pictures anyway :-)

We really love it!

Strange things...

I have lots of things I could post about. Rides at the mall, adventures on tricycles and big girl bikes, tea parties with friends. But instead I'm going to post some of the bizarre things I've seen in the last couple of months. Starting with...

Spotted this on a trip to best buy.

I was really, really tempted. But it wasn't a blu-ray. And I'd want to see the mega shark and giant octopus battling it out in the highest possible picture quality.

Spotted these at the pharmacy...

Which led me to have a number of questions:

Collector's series? When do you collect them? After you use them? I hope not. Before you use them? Doesn't that just make them really expensive, oddly textured stickers? Where would you even keep such a collection? Do they make special band-aid collectors books, like with coins and pokemon cards? This product is clearly for a very special kind of person.

Spotted this looking for bubble bath...

I can only imagine the commercial to go with this... does your baby have a hard time picking up dates? Smell a little too fresh, milky and powdery? Never fear, just use Johnson's baby cologne and your bundle of joy will be smelling like a frat boy and fighting them off in no time.

Seriously? Baby cologne?

And finally... this was quite some time ago, but it deserves a mention. For all the Brits, when you order tea and specify that you'd like milk to put in it, here's what you might get...

You get a mug of (often lukewarm) water. A teabag on the side with more lukewarm water. Some lemon. And almost a whole pint of milk. Because that's totally what I meant.

Tuesday Fun!

Today it was really warm. It's been a very mild winter so the first real warm day isn't as noteworthy as it usually is, but it was in the 50s and lovely outside so after daycare the girls, dog and I headed to the lake for a walk. With 50s of course comes slush, mud and puddles and Fiona was very excited by this.

Towards the end of the walk the girls experienced the first swing on the swings of 2012.

Then we headed home, wet and sandy.

So what better activity for the afternoon than baths? And how do you get some stuff done while your kids take a bath?

Bath them in the kitchen sink...

Fiona spent her time carefully transferring water using containers, cups and a syringe...

and Adele went absolutely nuts drenching the kitchen in water...

After that the girls insisted on bathing the dog, who was covered in sand and mud, and it was way too chaotic to take any pictures but he's all clean and sweet smelling now, though the entire bathroom was left looking like I'd shaved a yeti.

After all that work I felt it was time to take a break and see what was going on on facebook, and noticed that they are now hitting my interests pretty much 100% with their targeted ads... here's what they were promoting to me today (click to enlarge)...

Creepily accurate.