Sunday, April 27, 2008

The week winter came back

I guess I spoke too soon about summer last week. We got the cold weather everyone West of us was talking about mid-week. We had snow on Thursday and very cold winds until today (Sunday). Sarah couldn't figure out why we weren't going outside like we did last week. I told her it was too cold outside to go out and she just looked at me like I was crazy. Certainly wimpy...I've gotten used to 20 degrees and I'm not prepared to freeze anymore!
Although Sarah was grumpy from teeth coming is (still) and perhaps some terrible twos, she did make some leaps and bounds in terms of words she can now say and things she can do.

I call this the week of 'yummy' because she says it all the time - particularly when food is involved. She doesn't just say 'yummy', though - she says, 'yummy, yummy, yummy' just like the Swedish chef on the Muppets. I'm not sure where she got it from, but it's sure funny.
She's also learned to pull a door closed using the handle (but still can't open it, luckily) and to blow bubbles in the bath. She also now says 'eyes', 'all done' (at the same time as she does the sign which is waving her hands around in the air) and she can now say 'apple' (which sounds like ah-puh). She has also added the number 'eight' to the other numbers she can already say ('two' and 'six'). Although she's been fascinated with my slippers for some time, she can now successfully wear them and walk in them - watch the video below.

On Saturday Sarah and I went grocery shopping and to the library. Dale went bike hunting. After 18 years it's time for a new one...besides - with the price of gas the way it is, he's decided to ride his bike to work as much as he can when the weather is decent for it.
On Sunday Dale and Sarah went swimming while I did the rpm class (cycling in a class for a hour) at the gym. Apparently Sarah wasn't very interested in following along with what the group was doing in the pool. She wanted to do the opposite. Not too surprising - that's the way she's been all week. 
Sarah wanted to go out on the deck this morning to see what there was to see. Right beside Alice the goat was some left over ice so she picked some up...
...and took a bite. Apparently it was good because it got the 'ummm...yummy, yummy, yummy' designation. :o)
While Sarah napped this afternoon Dale went to buy his bike. They didn't have the right size yesterday so they built him one. When he got home, he took little Miss for a quick spin around the block. Here she is checking out the rooster that Auntie Connie and Uncle Ray gave her. When you press on the tail the beak opens and a light shines out of it's mouth and it does the cock-a-doodle-doo sound.
Just look at that flash cycling set up! 


Sunday, April 20, 2008

the week that summer came

This week it's really felt like summer has arrived. It's been sunny with highs in the high teens and low 20s. Hooray! After dinner on Friday night Dale hooked up the bike trailer and we took Sarah on a quick spin around the neighbourhood to see what she thought of the whole thing. We put some toys in with her and strapped on her helmet which is slightly too big. It tends to fall to one side on her head, which looks pretty cute.
On Saturday morning, Dale and Sarah did some work on the little stacking toy that she has that is pictured below. She spends hours working on it. Her favourite thing is dumping them all off the stick to start again.
On Saturday morning we went to the local plant nursery to see what they have. We're going to plant out one of the beds in our backyard with perennials and the other to veggies. Now that it feels like summer we're just itching to plant, but we have to wait until the May long weekend. We've started some seeds inside - the borage and oregano are already pushing through the dirt.
After the nursery we went up to the base to the used clothing and toys sale. We got Sarah her summer wardrobe and some fun toys for outside.  In the afternoon we went for another bike ride (to the Fort Whyte Centre).
On Sunday we went for a walk up to the swings and the slide in the wagon.
 
Sarah isn't the least bit afraid of the big kid slide. She even flips over half way down the slide and keeps asking for more. What a dare devil!
 
Sarah and Dale then went for swimming lessons while I went to the gym and to the grocery store. Sarah loves the slide at the swimming pool as well and she's starting to kick her legs and dog paddle as well. She almost puts her face in the water... :o)
While Sarah slept this afternoon, Dale got the fun job of emptying out the compost bin so we could move it behind the gardening shed onto the pavers. I aerated the lawn a bit.
Sarah just loves one of the new purchases - the popper machine. It's not quite as good as the neighbour's lawnmower, but we couldn't find one of those at the sale.
While she was in the tub tonight, Sarah showed me how her swimming is progressing.


Sunday, April 13, 2008

Spring has sprung and the sugaring off has started

On Monday Sarah stopped nursing. We were down to just one nurse a day and I must have run out of milk. Besides the 1/2 hour of crying after that happened, she hasn't looked back or asked for milk from me again. Weaning was quite painless for us, luckily.
Other than that, Sarah and I hosted a coffee/playgroup for my babysitting coop on Wednesday. Sarah wasn't at all pleased with the idea of having to share her toys with 5 or 6 other kids - she kept crying and asking 'up'. I thought we might get to skip that stage, but I guess not. On Friday we went to visit our neighbours over the back, Lisa and Sophia, for a playdate. Sophia is almost 3 and she and Sarah had a great time together. I guess Sarah doesn't have trouble sharing other people's toys, just her own. :o)
On Saturday I worked all day. We went to the range. The weather was really nice - a bit cold, but the ground was generally dry, so it made for a nice shoot. I shot C7 and Sig Sauer. It was my first time firing the Sig Sauer and it went well. I like it a lot better than the Browning, that's for sure. While I was working, Sarah and Dale went to the zoo in the morning and Sarah slept for 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon. She's been having really long naps for the past week or so and she's just so tired all the time. She's eating a lot too so she must be growing. She also started counting...well - she can reliably say the word '2' anyway. She's almost got '6' as well. She also added 'eat' to her vocabulary this weekend. Strangely enough she's stopped signing as she goes through this language explosion. She's done this before and then gone back to signing, but I wonder if this is it for signing for her... On Saturday night Sheri from the babysitting coop sat for us and Dale and I went to the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival. It was great!
On Sunday we took a drive down to St. Pierre de Jolys, about 3/4 of an hour South of Winnipeg to a sugaring off festival that they have at the museum there. What a great little town. We went for a ride on a horse-drawn wagon, had a look through the museum and looked around in the Goulet house. In the Goulet house there were women making butter, traditional Acadian sashes, pet- soeurs (little rolls made with pastry with brown sugar and cinnamon inside) and bread in the wood stove. We bought some locally made maple syrup and we also had some creme sucre and some taffy, which Sarah loved. What a look on her face - she's never had anything so sweet before! 
In the afternoon Dale went to Costco and I got going on vacuuming and washing the cars. What a lot of work but you know it must be Spring if you're washing your car. Yeah!
In the picture below, Sarah is watching the river below from the bridge at St. Pierre. She's wearing her new (to her) shoes - size 7 and way too big but she loves them and manages to walk ok in them.
Buzz and Buck the horses at St. Pierre
Buckets to catch the sap from the trees. They're all over town.
The maison Goulet.
An artsy photo of the tree in front of the St. Pierre museum.
When Dale went to Costco today he found Sarah a helmet to go with the bike trailer we got a few weeks ago. Now she's set for biking with us this summer. In the picture below it almost looks like she's driving using her bowl as a steering wheel! We put it on her for a small wander around the neighbourhood in her car this afternoon and she didn't try to tear it off, so that's good.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Swimming lessons

Sarah started swimming lessons today with her Daddy. Pictures will follow in a few weeks. Apparently she wasn't sure of the whole plan and clung to Dale like a proverbial leach as soon as they stepped out on the pool deck. About half way through the lesson, though, she warmed up to the whole thing. She's still not sure about putting her face in the water but I'm sure she'll get there.
She seems to be going through a bit of a language explosion this week. She's mimicking everything we say and it's starting to sound almost right. She said 'mommy' for the first time this week and she also said 'me, me, me' and pointed to herself. 

Sarah's favourite snack right now is dried apples (from Grammie and Granddaddie) and raisins. She mostly follows the rule that she's to sit down while eating...it helps that her special Winnie the Pooh chair is allowed to be in the kitchen while she has a snack. Snack time, by the way, is all day long. Half an hour after breakfast she starts making the sign to eat and she keeps making it all day long!

Little Miss Mouse has also discovered the fun that is eating spaghetti! She ate so much of it we thought she was going to burst.

Sarah loves to sweep floors (and 'fold' laundry too) so we bought her a broom. So much fun!
We'd planned to go to the Brandon Winter Fair on Saturday morning, but it rained and then snowed on Friday night, so the road conditions were too poor to go. Darn it. It was so beautiful and warm on Friday that we thought for sure it was the end of Winter...so - Alice the goat came out from her winter home (the garage). Alas, the snow wasn't finished with us...so Alice got a bit of a dusting of the white stuff.


Sarah loves Alice. She waves at her from her high chair and whenever she gets the opportunity she runs out to the back deck to visit with her.
When Sarah wakes up in the mornings she often plays for 45 minutes with the stuffed animals in her crib before she lets us know that she wants out. This morning she had all her stuffies lined up in a row with a blanket on them in case they were cold. 
On a more general note, the gym I joined has finally opened so I've gone a few times this week. Sarah seems to like the little play room as well, which is a bonus.
With the rapid disappearance of the snow this week, we discovered that the tree on the road allowance in front of the house had been ringed by some kind of animal. It turns out that it was a vole. A lot of the trees in the neighbourhood have met with the same fate, and many lawns have been destroyed as well. Dale did some digging in our backyard and he discovered a burrow leading right under our compost bin. Darn it. If we'd known that voles existed here we would have constructed the compost bin differently.