Sarah's July firsts

Sarah got a new-to-her tricycle  at the beginning of July and she was excited. Despite the fact that Dale attached blocks of wood on either side of the pedals, its still too big for her...maybe by the end of the summer her legs will be long enough for it.

Sarah's favourite thing to do while we're going on walks is to collect rocks and put them in her orange car or her wagon. If they're small enough she likes to throw them down the grates on the road. We have to stop and inspect every single one...walks are very slow and painful these days!

Sarah also got a new slide for the backyard last week and she loves to spend hours outside in the yard going up the steps and down the slide.

Sarah's also perfected the art of bubble blowing in the past couple of weeks as well. Not only can she blow them, but she can say the word too.

Speaking of words - I've stopped keeping track of all the words that she's been saying. Her words have really exploded and she's saying things like, 'mama sleepy', 'shoes feet' and things like that. Tonight she said, 'call bummpa, bummpa sleepy'. We tried calling Bummpa but there wasn't anyone home. She often calls Bummpa on her phone and talks to both him and Nana as well. She was pretty sure tonight, though, that Bummpa must be sleepy because she was. Funny girl.

Sarah still loves her rubber boots. She puts them on at every opportunity - especially when I turn my back - she sneaks down to the entrance way closet and puts them on and parades around the house.

Sarah and her Daddy sharing chocolate ice cream. Sarah got her own spoon just this one time - she eats too fast with it and there wasn't enough left for her Daddy. Now they share the same spoon so Daddy can manage her intake a bit better.

She's also getting very good at drinking water out of a glass with a straw. When she drinks water from the monkey glass that Nana and Bummpa gave her though, she insists that its juice. Needless to say that we play along.

Angie and William are visiting this weekend for her family reunion. We all went to an organic farm about a 30 minute drive from here for their family day this morning. Sarah and William got to touch the animals, go on a pony ride, watch a goat being milked, a sheep being sheared and play in a sandbox (William) and go down a slide (for Sarah). Sarah had a bit of a traumatic experience, though. She was feeding a goat a bit of grass and the goat was a bit enthusiastic about eating and took a good nip of her finger. Oh the howls of pain. Poor thing.

Angie and William. William's working on walking a lot which is very hard on his mom's back!

William loved it on the horse at first and then he wanted off. After looking at his feet in the picture below we're wondering if it's because his legs were turned out at a very odd angle. It must have hurt!

July 1st - Canada Day

On Canada Day we decided to go to the Mennonite Village in Steinbach (about an hour drive East of our house) in the morning. They really put on a show! Sarah's favourite part was the petting zoo. She was absolutely fascinated with the puppy. Dale thought the puppy was pretty special as well - almost enough to break our rule about not getting a dog when we're moving every couple of years. Luckily sense prevailed. The pigs, chickens, goats and the rabbit were a lot of fun as well. 

Sarah's 'oh' as she follows the animals around.

Sarah can't say 'swing' yet like she can say 'slide', but she still loves them!

Sarah was very interested in this lady and was very keen to get up on the bench and sit beside her.

She wanted up on every single tractor displayed along the street of the village. She's nuts about them.


We'd planned to hop on our bikes after Sarah's afternoon nap and go up to Assiniboine Park for the festivities, but a huge thunderstorm was forecasted...so - we had our picnic dinner at home and we were asleep before the fireworks at 10 pm. We are sooo lame these days!
Here's a video of Sarah helping her Daddy put away dishes. It's very hard to get video of her these days because as soon as she notices that I'm filming she wants to 'see, see'.

the week that Aunty Kelly and Uncle Simon came to visit

Last Tuesday (June 17th) Sarah and I joined a bunch of moms and kids from the Military Family Resource Centre for an outing at the zoo. I didn't bring the stroller because it's hard to run after Sarah while pushing a stroller. She did very well. She ran for a couple of hours straight with one ride on another kid's stroller for 10 minutes. We had a picnic lunch at the end. Fun was had by all.

On Wednesday night I had my first Usborne book party at home. Although 5 people had booked to come only one person actually came. Oh well. I guess building a business takes time.

On Thursday night Dale's sister Kelly and her husband Simon arrived at about 1115 pm. They drove straight from Calgary in one day. Good for them!

On Friday we went to the zoo with Kelly and Simon. Sarah showed them all her favourite animals and generally raced around and had a great time. They all had their pictures taken with Winnie the Bear. Winnie the Pooh is named after Winnie the Bear. It's no wonder that Sarah loves Winnie the Pooh so much - there's a Winnipeg connection (Winnie is named after Winnipeg for those who didn't know).

 

Sarah insisted that she should get the chance to climb into the egg in the Discovery Centre at the zoo. Once she was inside she didn't want to get out!

Sarah finally has a long enough attention span and motor control to enjoy colouring. She is so proud of herself!

 

She also said more than one word at a time this week. She loves to say, "I see" when she wants to be lifted up to see something or if she can see the birds from her high chair at the table. As Simon found out, she can also say 'you, sit'. She's turned into a bit of a TV addict over the past couple of weeks. Sometimes I can't hear anything from her (always a bad sign) and I'll find her sitting on the couch in the basement in front of a TV that isn't even on. You know it's bad when... Anyway - back to Simon's story. He went down after her one time and found her on the couch. She immediately pointed at him and said, "you, sit." Bossy little girl!

She also said 'chair', 'nap', 'pool', 'towel' and 'slide' this week as well. Her favourite numbers are 2 and 8. When she counts she says, '2', '8'...

This weekend we put Sarah is a booster chair instead of her high chair. Generally it's been a success except she keeps rocking the chair back a bit...very worrying. Every time she does it, we put her back in the high chair. She'll learn eventually, I hope.

On Saturday Sarah and I went to Sophia's (neighbour over the back) 3rd birthday party at the Children's Museum. They did some face painting and then dressed the kids up in costumes and gave them instruments. Then they did a parade around the Museum. Very funny. I can't post pictures of any of the other kids because I didn't get any photo releases signed. Now that I'm a pro photographer I have to think of these things!

 

In the afternoon Dale, Kelly and Simon did some touristing stuff while Sarah and I came home for a nap. On Saturday evening we got a babysitter in and the 4 of us when to the Down Homer night at Dale's mess. Surf and turf. The lobster was amazing. I got through most of it before I just couldn't stuff any more food into me! 

Sunday morning we went to Assiniboine Park and walked around. Dale and Sarah took off early to go their last swimming lesson. Dale reported at lunch that Sarah no longer has a fear of the water. She leapt off the side of the pool into his arms, had her head plunged underwater and no problems. He's concerned though because she has a complete lack of fear which is backed up by no skills whatsoever. We'll have to watch her very carefully this summer! While Simon, Kelly and I were walking around the Park Simon commissioned me to take a picture of a Poppy for him. One of their cats is named Poppy so they want a picture of one for their wall. Here it is...

Sunday afternoon after Sarah's nap Dale, Sarah and I went to our friends Ryan and Jen's house for a goodbye BBQ. They're being posted to Ottawa. There was a kiddie pool in the backyard so Sarah got to go swimming again. She was freezing - shivering like crazy - but she wouldn't get out. She had so much fun!

Monday morning we went to the Museum of Man and Nature with Kelly and Simon. Sarah and her Daddy ran all around the museum. She had a fantastic time! Then Sarah and I went home for lunch and a nap and Dale, Kelly and Simon went into the Exchange District and poked around a bit.

Tuesday Aunty Kelly and Uncle Simon pulled out to drive back to Alberta and Sarah and I were all alone because Dale was back to work. She wasn't a happy camper to be stuck with me all by herself!

To finish off the post, here are some pictures of Aunty Kelly and Uncle Simon with Sarah.

The week of 'yar!'

Although I just posted a few days ago, there's still a lot of stories to tell this week. 

For one thing, I forgot to tell you all about the first sweater that I've ever knitted. I sure learned a lot. It took forever to finish it, but it's done. I sent it off last week to a little girl named Mina Lockhart who lives in Dartmouth. She was born in December and she gets her gift in June. At least I knitted a sweater that's for a one year old so hopefully she'll get some wear out of it!

A picture of the Stella d'Oro daylily at the front of our house...in the rain. It sure has done a lot of raining over the past week or so. They say the mosquitoes will be upon us a week or so from now. Great. 

One of Sarah's favourite things to do is to play with the static cling 'stickers' that we have for the door onto the deck. Here's a butterfly in the rain.

On one of the nice days this week Sarah and I had some fun on the deck with her hat and various expressions on her face. She's very interested in emotions and facial expressions these days.

Holy pout, batman.

Sarah the clown.

Sarah's having a lot of fun drinking out of the monkey glass that Nana and Bummpa gave her when they came to visit (see last post) but she's also branching out to drinking out of the container that I water inside plants with. What a clown.

Sarah is really enjoying the bird feeder on our deck and she can now identify two of the birds that spend the most time there. She's very good at saying 'grackle' and the red-winged blackbird she calls 'black.' She also said 'car' this week and calls a muffin, 'muffo.' I have one of those mini-muffin silicone muffin pans and she sure loves her mini-muffins! This weekend Dale taught her to talk like a pirate. She's very good at saying 'yar!' During the week Sarah and I had a great time saying 'buffalo'. It was like our code word. Every time she got a bit grouchy this week I would say 'buffalo' which would lead to her forgetting that she was grouchy in her hurry to say 'buffalo' and laugh...boy did we ever laugh!

Her favourite book this week is 'Good Night Moon'. She asks for it to be read to her at least 3 or 4 times a day. She's very good at saying 'night' and today she added 'moon' to her vocabulary. She can't say them together though. She's getting close to saying more than one word at a time, but she's not there yet. However, with a combination of signs and words she is generally talking in sentences. It's pretty neat to see.

On Saturday we got into our biking gear and although it was threatening rain we put Sarah into the bike carrier and took off for the Assiniboine Park and the Zoo! The trip took about 1/2 hour and Sarah had a great time in the carrier. I was having a hard time keeping up with speedy Dale on his new hybrid bike! Sarah ran around the zoo for over an hour, stopping for two quick snacks and tripping by the bears. The paths aren't very smooth and she doesn't look where she's going so naturally she tripped. However, this was a worse than usual tumble - it drew a bit of blood on her lip and I think she bit her tongue a tiny bit and she had a bump on her forehead. Luckily the red squirrels and the Markhors were right there so she was easily distracted. After the Markhors there's the slide, so, she was off again!

On Sunday (Father's day) Sarah gave her Daddy a card and a piece of artwork. When I was supervising her artistic endeavours yesterday I silently thanked the person who invented washable crayons. What a great invention! Anyway - in the morning Dale and Sarah went swimming and after her nap he took her to the park to fly a kite while I made dinner. Apparently Sarah is great at flying kites. She stood very still and held onto the string while Dale launched the kite. She loved letting out the string but after it was all out and there wasn't any very exciting going on (except the kite flying around) she gave the string back to Dale. When he wound the kite back down it got interesting again when she could touch the tail.

The week of stop

Since Nana and Bummpa left I haven't taken many pictures of Sarah. I've been busy getting two businesses going - my photography business (I've had one photo shoot so far and a few more lined up) and I've become an Usborne Books consultant. I'm having two parties for that later on in the month. I've also been studying for a professional exam for the Navy as well. I took the test on Monday night and although I doubt I passed (95% to pass on the first section is hard to manage), I think I did better than I ever have before (I've written it a few times).

Last week I went in to check on Sarah before I went to bed (she is usually on the opposite side of the bed from where we put her down and in some kind of crazy position without any covers on) and much to my surprise she had pulled down her pajama pants and her diaper was mostly off. Whoops! I managed to get them both back on without waking her. The next morning when I went in to get her both pants and diaper were completely off. Luckily the bed was dry! So - for a couple of nights after that I put her diaper on backwards and that seems to have confounded her for the moment. We're back to a diaper on the correct way and she hasn't tried to get it off again.

Sarah has been adding vocabulary like crazy these days. Last week she surprised me by yelling 'stop' and making the sign (which for her was smashing one hand down onto the other arm...close enough). Wow. I guess I got my own back in spades. I do the 'stop' thing when she's having an out of control toddler moment (some call them a tantrum). It helps to jolt her out of the endless loop of tears, screaming and flailing arms and feet. I'm not sure what I was doing to warrant such an explosive 'stop' from her, but apparently it was something distasteful to her! I had to choke back my laughter because by the expression on her face she meant business!

She's also becoming more and more sure about what she wants to do and what she doesn't. In other words, she's becoming opinionated. I'm not sure which parent she got that from!

I took this video a few days ago. We don't normally wear boots inside, nor do we eat morning snack (or as Sarah calls it, sack) in our high chair, but no day when it's pouring so hard that you can't go outside is a 'normal' day so you just have to make do. As you may have already noticed, Sarah's boots are on the wrong feet because she put them on herself and made it very clear that she didn't need my help at all, thank you very much!

Dale has been away since Saturday morning and he gets back today. He went to the West coast with work so on Sunday he went to my sister Gwyn's house and had a visit with Gwyn and Tim and my parents. Sarah and I had a chat with them on Skype, which was fun. Sarah had fun climbing up on the desk so she could kiss Daddy (the monitor) but she couldn't understand that in order for Daddy to be able to see her that she needed to move away from the monitor (which has a built in camera). Too funny.

Sarah and I have been doing a lot of hanging out for the past few days. Not much different than normal except I don't get a Daddy break at the end of the day and Sarah doesn't have someone to race around the kitchen and jump into her tent with while I'm making dinner. 

Last night she decided that instead of reading a story that she wanted to go straight into bed. Highly unusual. She said 'bed' for the first time and walked over to her crib and tried to climb into it. So I asked her if she wanted to read a story or get into bed and the answer was 'bed.' So - I followed her instructions and as soon as she was in bed and all tucked in she looked over at the reading chair and said 'book' with a very confused expression on her face. Sigh. I took her out of bed and read her a couple of books and then put her in bed and didn't hear a peep from her after that.

Another week of 'stuck'

This week was another week of everything being 'stuck.' It's such a multifunctional word that it was apparently worth keeping around. She added 'blue', 'applesauce', 'nice house', and 'night night' to her vocabulary this week. 

Nana and Bummpa came to visit from Alberta this week. They arrived on Wednesday afternoon and they came bearing gifts. Clothing (which Sarah promptly asked to try on), a cool glass with monkeys, bananas and sparkles floating in between the two layers, and a magnetic butterfly. She loved all her gifts, but the most interesting one was the bag it came in, of course! 

Sarah knew who they were, but she wasn't so sure of them at first. But within an hour or so they were playing with her and all was well. All it took was showing an interest in her stuffed animals and soon Bummpa had them all piled up on his lap. We all thought it would take longer than that. It just goes to show that you never know with kids!

On Thursday we went to the conservatory at Assiniboine Park. Sarah needed to run around and I needed to meet one of the people who works for me so she could sign her annual evaluation report.

Dale took Friday off from work and we went up to Lower Fort Garry. It was a beautiful day and Sarah ran around for a couple of hours without stopping. She had a great time going through all the buildings but she especially loved the cats who were wandering around outside. She followed them for at least 20 minutes.

Sarah enjoyed sitting on the little stool in the teepee.

A couple of artsy shots of the displays in the warehouse.

Dale, Sarah and a Red River cart.

We thought that Sarah would be tired from all the running that she did in the morning, but after our picnic lunch she was running around being chased by her Daddy again. There were a few school groups there having lunch as well and some of the Grade 5 girls were fascinated with Sarah. She even let one of the girls pick her up!

On Saturday we went to Fort Whyte in the morning and walked around the trails. Sarah always enjoys saying hello to the buffalo in the main building and this week she actually said the word! Dale and I went out to dinner that night with friends while Nana and Bummpa babysat. We had a huge thunderstorm that night and early Sunday morning. Surprisingly Sarah didn't wake up to either of them. 

On Sunday we went down to the Forks in the morning and out for dinner that night. While we were out to dinner at Boston Pizza Sarah got her first taste of wrestling on the TV and she really enjoyed it. She told us all about how the man 'fall down' (she didn't seem to notice the blood on the mat which is a good thing). She also enjoyed watching hockey as well. She really liked drinking milk with a straw from a cup. She liked it so much that she drank about twice what she normally does. 

On Monday morning Nana and Bummpa came to our last class of Kindermusik for the summer and then they left to drive home from there. Sarah is still (5 days after they left) asking for Bummpa as soon as she wakes up (sometimes she asks for Daddy). I think she really enjoyed their visit.

The week of 'stuck'

This week Sarah constantly said 'stuck'. Everything that wouldn't work the way she wanted it to was 'stuck'. The other popular word of the week was 'snack' except she pronounces it more like 'sack'. She's also mad about rocks right now which makes for some pretty slow walks around the neighbourhood -she stops to pick them all up and then she has to put them all back. She's also decided that a chicken is called a 'bok bok' and a rooster is a 'cocko'.

Sarah enjoys anything that involves fruit these days. She's not all that interested in veggies, unfortunately. Below is a picture of her berry crumble face and the grimace I get when I ask her to smile.

On Tuesday when Dale was talking to his Dad she got to talk to her 'Bummpa'. Much to everyone's surprise she said 'Bummpa' on the first try. She also pointed at the wall of family pictures in the family room and she told me which one was Bummpa. How's that for a memory! She hasn't seen him since Christmas.

Sarah loves working with megabloks. Her castle building skills are really starting to improve! Sarah and Dale do some building when he gets home from work most evenings during the week.

We saw our first hummingbird at our feeder in the backyard this week. It must be spring! This weekend instead of going camping like we used to, we organised and planted our backyard. On Wednesday I bought over $500 of perennials. While I was buying plants Sarah ran around and pulled some tags out of the plants (whoops!) and filled a watering can with rocks (a little less of an impact). She was filthy by the time I was done - dirt all over her face but the biggest smile ever. We washed up in the bathroom at the plant nursery before we left. On Friday night after Sarah was in bed, I did the planting. Wow. I bought too many plants, so luckily the nursery will take the extras back. That should help bring the cost down. I didn't plan to spend quite so much!

During the week Dale and I also moved dirt from the backyard raised beds to the front lawn to do some top dressing. We had extra dirt, so it seemed like a good thing to do.

On Saturday morning at around 8 I looked up from the breakfast table to see a bunny rabbit in my perennial bed. Horrors! I went haring (pun intended) into the backyard in my PJ's to investigate. We found about 8 baby bunnies in behind the shed. It was worse than we thought! We weren't going to be able to plant until we got some rabbit proof fencing up. So...the neighbour over the back (Mike) had some extra chicken wire left over from when he proofed his yard, so Dale set to work. What a picky and painful job, but he got it done and it appears to be working. Dale also went to the store and bought some supplies. Busy day for him! Sarah and I went to get groceries and played in the backyard with the ball. Not surprisingly, she didn't really want to play with the ball - she wanted to plant and water.

On Sunday we planted out the tomato seedlings into pots. Sarah was a big help as you can see from the pictures below. Apparently dirt tastes good - something every kid knows.

While Sarah napped, Dale and I planted the veggies bed with beans, peas, cucumbers along the back and carrots, hot peppers, leeks, borage (just for fun), green onions, sweet peppers, and strawberries. We're going to plant watermelons, but we're just waiting for them to sprout inside first. We planted out the lettuce and radishes as well in a separate bed. I planted nasturtiums, morning glory and calendula in beds along the patio so we'll get some flowers growing up as well. In the picture below the veggies are in the bed in the foreground and the perennials are in the background.

An artsy shot of the lilies that we planted.

Sarah disappeared in the afternoon after her snack for at least 1/2 an hour. I could hear her talking away in her room so I didn't disturb her. When she came out to the kitchen I went into her room to see what she'd been doing. She had her Navy bear and her monkey set up on the chair so they could read a Curious George book. It is certainly not lost on her that Curious George and her monkey are the same kind of animal.

On Monday, after two beautiful sunny days, it rained. Yuck. Oh well - we now have a garden that can benefit from some rain! Free water as far as we're concerned. So we went down to the Forks in the morning for an outing. Sarah was pretty sure she was going to wear her Daddy's shoes - not her own!

Below is a video of Sarah trying to put on her new crocs that we bought while we were at the Forks.