Another skating dress

Bet you were thinking that this would be another dress for Katrine.  Well…wrong.  Our little Elspeth will be doing her first skating competition in January and so needed an outfit.  Katrine’s first one being too big that is.  Here it is.

Added these details to the skirt just for some fun.

Cute isn’t it?

Halloween

Wow, am I ever behind.  Okay Halloween.  Lets see…we will start with the pumpkins.  Both girls had fun working on the pumpkins.  I think that it helped that our pumpkins’ guts were more solid than stringy so the girls were willing to touch them.  We grew the pumpkins large enough this year that we did not have to buy pumpkins but were able to use our homegrown ones instead.  After cutting it open we actually scooped out large chunks of flesh with these giant seeds imbedded in it.  The seeds were so nice and plump and large that we rinsed, salted and roasted them.  Man are they good.  Seeing as how we had two, each girl got to design and carve their own pumpkin which made it much more enjoyable for Glenn and I (no bickering).

The night before Halloween Elspeth had her skating lesson and they were allowed to come in costume.  She was so excited to have yet another excuse to wear her EB sheep costume.  Halloween morning saw her baking up a storm with my mom at a local cooking class.  They made spider buns and black cat(chocolate) cookie pops which were half the size of her head.  After nap, she was off to her nursery school for their Halloween party which she enjoyed until an older boy came in with a mask and she hid, quaking, under a table.  This week she is still nervous to go back to nursery in case he walks through the door again.  I am looking at the positive.  She will likely never be a fan of scary movies.  Yippee!

Katrine missed out on a lot of the Halloween activities in her school due to concussion related issues; which seem to have resolved themselves (thank goodness).  She spent a large chunk of Halloween afternoon at home with her grandparents and I playing board games infront of the fire. I think that basking in a sea of undivided attention helped to take the sting out of missing out.

After a quick dinner, my mom, Glenn and I took them out in the drizzle trick or treating.  The girls had fun and came home with too much candy which is slowly being eaten.

 

Cut the Rope Fun

Both girls love to use our ipad; particularly Cut the Rope.  They play the game, watch the youtube stories, read the comic, wear the shirts.  The star attraction of all aspects of this game being On Nom.  Glenn thought that Elspeth might have some fun if we got her an On Nom for her birthday.  Well, fun has been had by both girls.

Each meal finds this little critter sitting beside the table in his “multi-purpose” seat (yes, we have had discussions about what poop composed entirely of candy would look like).  He will also watch tv from this seat and of course it doubles as a potty.

Being the candy eater that he is, our Om Nom asked the girls if he could accompany them on a brief Halloween outing.  Well, he would need a costume of course because being a green creature was not creative enough.  Turned out pretty cute.

Getting caught up

1. Concussion:  Well, Katrine is better…mostly.  She is back at school full time and skated again for the first time last night, just some stroking but something.  She was mortified because doctor’s orders were for her to wear her helmet this week to make sure that she didn’t rehurt herself.  If that was not bad enough, she had to borrow her sister’s helmet AND as I was putting it on, Patrick Chan (her hero) walked by.  Poor thing.

Thank goodness that she is able to get up and get moving again.  It is really hard trying to get that girl to sit still without TV or computer to distract her.  The first thing she told her teacher upon going back to school was that I had spent the week saying “Stop jumping.”, “Don’t run around.”, “Put that book down.”  Sigh.  The photos below show how I tried to make the time less trying for all of us.  The best was the mani pedi.  Two hours of having to sit still.  Well worth the money.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that the last few things resolve themselves and she can be ready for her first skating competition in four weeks (she will be crushed if she isn’t).

2. Elspeth skating:  Okay, that girl loves her skating.  She is doing really well but the smile on her face when she puts her skates on and her reluctance to get off the ice makes me happy.

3. Halloween:  We decided to get out this past Sunday for some pre-Halloween fun at the zoo.  We took our black  cat and our E.B. sheep as well as a friend and his kids along with us.  The kids had a blast trick or treating (not for candy!!!) through the tundra section but the highlight was definetely watching Hudson swim in the water.  They were able to get right up to the glass with him diving and paddling infront of them.

I hurt my back lifting Elspeth up to see the gorrillas at play but it seems to be getting better gradually.  Katrine enjoyed going in to the Critter Cave to look at all of the bugs; particularly the giant snails.  Elspeth on the other hand absolutely refused to set foot inside – not a big fan of bugs. 😎

We ended up doing a costume parade where each of the kids got a giant panda flag which was the highlight of the event for Elspeth.  Overall great family fun.

Elspeth is three

Yesterday was a lot of fun for the birthday girl.  I don’t think that a smile ever left her face.  We started the day with gifts.  Her absolute favourite was her Om Nom stuffy.  She has “fed” it candy all day today and it slept with her last night.

As you can see, she also still wore her birthday hat all day.  After nap some of Elspeth’s China family joined us for a small party in honour of her birthday.  It is always great to see the kids together and get caught up.  Sometimes when you watch them together you can see similarities in temperment.  The kids painted, hunted for “birthday treasure” (really just plastic Easter eggs), chased balloons and had an inpromptu musical concert with some of Elspeth’s new insturments.

I think that is met all of Elspeth’s expectations because she woke up today asking if it was her birthday again.  One goof up though was the cake.  I made a point of checking that her name was spellt correctly when I picked it up at the bakery.  Thrilled it was right.  I did not however pay attention to the rest because I figured that it was pretty straight forward.  It wasn’t until we opened the box to put in the candles that Glenn noticed the spelling mistake.  Sigh, good thing that she can’t read yet.

And for her sister’s birthday, she got….

…a concussion.  Yep, our Katrine got a concussion on Thrusday afternoon just in time for her sister’s birthday.  Here is the irony.  We always thought if she got a concussion it would be the result of something happening while skating.  I mean, that is where she spends waaaaaay to much time.  Nope!  Katrine was injured at school.  Nope, not in gym or while at the park.  She was standing in line and tripped over another’s feet before preceeding to smash her head into the ground.

She is off training for seven days of which the only up side is that I do not need to drag Elspeth over to the school in time for the bell.  Instead, she can nap for an extra half hour before we meet the bus.  I know that Katrine will be bored by Monday.

How is she doing?  Well, if you didn’t really know her you would just see an obnoxious child.  She is still dizzy and doesn’t have much appetitie.  Which translates into many snacks and a child who looks fine until you see that she is functioning by sheer will power.  Not sure how school will go as we are taking it one day at a time.  What I do know, is that it should help make the party more entertaining.

 

Let the third birthday celebrations begin

On Thanksgiving weekend my family came over to celebrate.  While they were here we celebrated both my sister in laws and Elspeth’s birthdays.  It was fun because Elspeth got it.  Cupcakes – a hit, presents – hit.  Loved it.

This morning they celebrated her birthday at nursery school.  They made sugar cookies and Elspeth was thrilled that she got to chose the colour – pink.  We sent some simple halloween craft supplies and they all created sticker pumpkins at the craft table.  Then she got a birthday hat and a nursery version of happy birthday.  That was one happy girl (as you can see) when I picked her up.

We topped the day off with a birthday visit from Grammy.  Elspeth thought that the pink, sparkly cat card was adorable.  And then she saw the super, fuzzy polar fleece blanket with the family of penguins on it.  What followed was a lot of happy laughing and a few blanket rides (Katrine has her sit on the blanket and then she pulls Elspeth around.)

Quiet day tomorrow and then it will be her actual birthday as well as her party.  Getting excited.