Liam's Update

What can I say about Liam? He and Kyla are inseparable. They get along really well and when I hear them giggling, it usually means they are getting into trouble. I've had to separate them so they would behave. Lately, Kyla has been into dressing up Liam - putting butterfly clips in his hair, putting him in her skirts and socks and jewelry. Whatever the girls do, Liam has to do it too. In spite of it all, he is still ALL BOY. He loves trucks and tools and has a potty mouth ("poop" being his favourite word). Liam does have a very sweet side to him, one that likes to cuddle and tell you over and over that he loves you.

Liam finally got a big boy bed. He had been bugging us for a few weeks and, since he was 3 1/2 already, we figured it was time.

Liam decided to draw himself a mustache.

One morning while the girls were at school, Liam got into Kyla's play makeup. Notice the purple eyeshadow under his eyes and the bright pink lip gloss all over his mouth.

Kyla's Update

Kyla has grown so much in the past few months. Not so much physically (she's still super skinny), but she has grown mentally. She is doing really well in pre-school. She is at the top of her class and her teachers say she is more than ready for kindergarten. She has become a little more social in her class. At the beginning of the school year she would cry when I tried to leave and she would sit with one of her teachers, Miss Sonne, for most of the morning. After a few weeks she stopped crying, but she wouldn't let me leave until she was safely holding her teacher's hand. In the last week she will now go into the gym and find her teacher on her own. She is even starting to talk to some of the other kids. It's a big step for her.

Kyla, who gave Moira the nickname Honey, has now stopped calling her that and uses her real name. It's sad to me. I'm not even sure why she stopped. I guess it's just another way that she is getting older.

Through it all, Kyla is still the clown. She loves to make people laugh.

(Above pics courtesy of Liam)

Lately Kyla has been wearing one of Moira's old ballet recital costumes. Here she is performing some leaps.

Moira's Update

My poor neglected blog! I'm sorry I haven't updated you in a long time. Life sometimes gets in the way of the fun stuff. And the longer I went without updating, the more overwhelming it got. The more overwhelming it got, the more I waited. So I've decided to break it down into smaller bits that way it doesn't become too much for everyone to handle.

I'm going to start with Moira. The year started off with a bang for her. At the end of January she received a citizenship award from school.

That weekend was the annual Robbie Burns dinner. While we didn't attend this year, we did go to watch Moira dance. This was her first time dancing at Burns. It was a very exciting and proud moment to see her perform in front of over 500 people.

Here she is dancing the Highland Fling.

Today is the first day of Moira's track break. She gets three weeks off. She has been looking forward to this break for while. She continues to do well at school, but, if given the choice, she would rather stay at home.

Happy 2011

I am really excited for this year, only because last year was so bad and I couldn't wait for it to be over. I'm really hoping that 2011 will be our year, and so far, it's been pretty good.

My workspace downstairs has been, well, a disaster. I've been trying to get it cleaned up for over a year. I would work on it for a while and then I would find something that I forgot I had and then want to start creating again. The mess would just stay there. Right after Christmas, I got the desire to really get it cleaned up. We were planning an open house on New Year's Day so I wanted to have it cleaned up for when people came over. And it was time. I felt it. I needed to have a tidy work space before I could move forward.

This is what it looked like before:

Actually, it looked worse than this. Much worse.

But now it looks like this:

It's not perfect, but, then, neither am I. It's still a lot better than it was and I can actually see the floor now.

I also share the room with the kids. This is their area. I got all the games and puzzles sorted out tonight while I watched Gladiator. I still have their cabinets to finish up, but, again, it's better than it was.

This morning Liam and I hit the thrift stores. I was looking for some more materials to make my colour-your-own dolls. Not only did I find an abundance of it, but I also found some other great treasures...

like this awesome pear shaped case.

I also found this. I thought it would great to organize my stationary.

Then I found this book of collected works of Rudyard Kipling, volume III. There is no date on it, but the inscription on the front page is dated Christmas, 1902. It's still in great condition, even though the dust jacket is missing. I looked it up on Amazon to see if it was worth anything, but it's not. The highest price I could find for this year and condition was $18. Still, I only paid $1.99 for it and I think it's super cool. It's hard to believe that it's over 100 years old.

I started making recycled gift tags out of boxes. With the amount of mac and cheese and Gogurt we go through in this house, I have an abundant supply of materials. I've been cutting and embellishing with gusto and soon I'll have them listed in my shop.

School starts next week. This semester I'm taking intro to classification systems (think Dewey decimal system) and intro to reference services. I had to pay $220 for three text books this semester. It always makes me ill when I have to buy my books. It makes me ill to pay for school at all since a good chunk of the charges are for student union, newspaper and other miscellaneous fees. Seems stupid for me to pay them since I don't even attend the physical school. But I can't get out of it. I have to pay them for all the other people who go to campus. It's frustrating to be nickel and dimed for services not rendered to me.

I'm looking forward to all the new possibilities this new year has to offer and I will jump whole heartedly in to them.

Christmas 2010

Ah, yes! Another holiday season has arrived, Christmas Day has come and gone. This time of year is always fun, but I'm glad when it's over too. It's such a busy time and this year was no exception. Here are a few highlights of the past couple of weeks.

Santa made his annual visit to our house again this year. The kids are always happy to see him and Will and I are glad that he can come.

Lucy checking out the big Man in Red

Liam, of course, wouldn't go near Santa, but when he found out that he brought presents with him, he tried to get his and run. It didn't work and Will sat with him while he opened his gift. The kids all got Zhu Zhu pets this year and promptly ran off to play with them and forgot all about Santa.

Last Sunday the girls were still at Grandpa's house from a sleepover the night before, so I took Liam to the shelter with me. It was his first time to help clean up the adoption rooms. He had a good time, especially with the kittens.

This is Divot. He kept stretching up on Liam for some loves. If we didn't already have three cats, I would have taken him home with me. He is a sweetheart, but takes every chance he can to escape out of the room.

This is Liam. Liam the kitten, that is. He is a nice boy too and I had to capture this moment of Liam and Liam together.

This is Keifer, Divot and Tyke

Sweet Aristotle

Dark Sky

Liam came to the shelter again with me today and almost half the cats in the shelter got adopted this past week, including Divot, Liam, Tyke, and Kyla's favourite, Badger. I hope all those cats and kittens had a very merry Christmas. We will miss them.

Will and Liam doing some vinyl work

This brings us to Christmas:

This was Christmas Eve night after the kids went to bed and the house was calm and the tree looked lovely.

It didn't last long!

Liam getting the much longed for train set

After we opened up our presents and got the front room cleaned up, it was time to start it all over again when Will's family came over. I tried to get a picture of the chaos that ensued, but my camera didn't have a wide enough lens to capture the mess. We usually have Christmas over at Will's parent's house, but since his mom is no longer with us, the responsibility fell to us this year. We missed her a lot that day.

This is our annual "What is your favourite present" photo that I take every Boxing Day. This year Moira chose her Nintendo DS, Liam is holding on to his Thomas train that goes to his train set (although, secretly, I think his fave gift was his scissors. He promptly opened them and offered to cut things for everyone.) and Kyla chose her bike.

As for Will and I, Will's fave is his bottle of scotch and I picked my pink revolver.

Kyla trying out her new bike

Moira got an IOU from Grandpa to go bike shopping next month.

I finished school for the semester, with my last final on the 18th. It was particularly rough this go around. One of my classes was brutal and with a lot of family upheaval these past few months, it was hard to concentrate on school. But it's over and as long as I pass, I don't care what my grades are at this point.

Now it's time to clean up. I think it's going to take me a week.

You Tube Tuesday

Wow! December already. It's hard to believe that another year is almost over and it's that holiday season once again. The kids are watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and, so you can share in our afternoon, here is one of my favourite songs from this movie.

Snow Day

We received a recorded message very early this morning saying that all the schools in the district will be closed because of the snow. This is Moira's first snow day. It was barely light out and Moira wanted to go outside to play. It was all I could do to keep her in until 9:30. She's outside now playing by herself. Liam and Kyla have no desire to be out in the cold. Can't say that I blame them.

It started snowing around noon yesterday and it hasn't stopped since. We have about 6 - 7 inches of snow now, but some places in the valley have more. I haven't seen so much snow here since my first winter here in 1996.

Views of the backyard:

Anyone care to go swimming?

Poor Suki! She's not a little dog and see how high the snow comes up on her.

This is the front of the house looking down the street.

Sugar has the right idea staying in bed.

And Will has to drive in this stuff all day. As he said this morning before he left for work, "The crazies don't take snow days so I can't either."