winter wonderland

We spent the day yesterday up at the top of Grouse Mountain and it was truly a winter wonderland! We drove through Vancouver and over the bridge to North Vancouver in our sweaters and pants, passing by the groups of kids playing soccer outside in the schoolyards, and then parked the car to gear up with snow pants and scarves and heavy jackets in order to step onto the gondola! 6 minutes later, we stepped off of the gondola into the surreal world of snow, ice and cold, cold air!!! There's a great outdoor skating rink up there, with a big fire pit to warm up by, some live reindeer outside of Santa's workshop, hot chocolate with the greatest view of the whole city, and then we also trekked up to see the two orphaned grizzly bears behind an electric fence. One of the bears came right up to us, and sat down to stare at us for a while - both of us very curious! It was amazing to be THAT close to a live bear, and not to be freaking out!!!! I'm really looking forward to spending a lot more time up there this winter. Next time we'll have to bring our skiis to try a bit of skiing with Kea, and there's also great snowshoeing trails! The only two complaints I had about yesterday were 1) Santa is already there, visiting the children. IT'S NOT EVEN DECEMBER YET! That's just crazy! and 2) They had these huge LOUD snow making machines set up in order to blow even more snow onto the ski runs, which ruined the quiet beauty of the area and also gave Kea some very warped views of where snow comes from!! And the absolute highlight of the day for me was taking the gondola down - we were able to get right up to the front window, had a clear view all across the city, and it felt like we were flying through the clouds as we travelled down! Just amazing.

skating with santa!

I'm realizing that it's hard for me to find the time to blog every day......and in fact, I get into a certain routine on the computer, consisting primarily of searching with the mouse, and then I'll realize that it's been a while since I last wrote an entry and that I should really type something! Part of this is definitely the fact that I'm mainly at the computer when I'm trying to get Tiegan to sleep - she sits in the front carrier facing me, and I bounce on our exercise ball and use the mouse as it's the quietest. Usually I'm down here doing this, while Jamie is upstairs reading Kea a few bedtime books, and then once the kids are asleep there's a million and one other things I should be doing and I never seem to have time to type on the computer. That, and I'm so often exhausted and brain-dead by this time of the night that I'd rather just stare, half-comprehendingly, at the screen than try to think of something "interesting" to say!! :-)

Tonight was Jamie's work Christmas party, so we went to 8 Rinks in Burnaby to skate for an hour (with Santa, who also handed out big bags FULL of candy to all the kids, and toys to all the toddlers - Tiegan got these GREAT stacking cups for the bath, and Jamie and I are going to raid Kea's bag of WAY TOO MUCH CANDY before she has a real chance to look at it!) and then we had dinner. It was so great to skate again, I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it. And they set up the rink with snow along the edges, fake trees and white lights everywhere - it looked like a winter wonderland! Jamie wore Tiegan in the front carrier, and then Kea either tried skating with a cage, or hopped on one of the many sleds being whipped around by willing skaters! Her friend Riley is spending the night tonight as well, so she came along, and I think they had a really good time. Though it was a bit late, as by the end they were starting to fight lots, especially over who got to play with the toddler toys. A sure sign that it's past bedtime!

Tomorrow we're going to head up to Grouse Mountain for the day - it's forecasted to be nice and sunny once again, and we bought a pass to go up the gondala a couple of months ago and have yet to make it up there, so we figured it's more than time to go! It's a nice place to go in the winter, when you can snowshoe and ski and skate in an outdoor rink, and it'll be great for hiking in the summer, but in the rainy season it's not such a nice place to be!

We rented the Big Fish DVD lastnight, and I really enjoyed it. It was much sweeter than I was expecting, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it! I'm really glad that Jamie insisted on getting a DVD player for our computer, it's just so great to be able to pick up an occasional movie during these winter months! And today I found a DVD at A&B Sound (we're STILL filling our order from the break-in many moons ago - only 144 CD's to go!) for Kea's holiday stocking. She LOVES The Magic Schoolbus(we get the CD Roms and books from the library all the time) and so I found a DVD with 3 bug-themed adventures! If anyone is ever looking for ideas for Kea, they can never go wrong with MSB!

And that's it for now - time to put the sheets in the drier so we can make our bed, and finish a couple of letters to put in the mail, then maybe some time to read before collapsing exhausted into bed. Hopefully Tiegan sleeps through the whole night tonight!

love makes the world go round!

This morning while I was slowly waking up (ie trying desperately to catch a few more minutes of shuteye, all wrapped up in my nice warm bed, with two little kidlets jumping all over me and cajoling me to GET UP GET UP GET UP!) Kea leaned over and gave me a big hug and we shared this sweet dialogue:

"I love you sooooooooooooooo much, mom"
"I love you too, Kea"
"But I love you way more"

Now I don't think that's actually possible, but it was a great way to wake up anyways! Some days life just feels so good - and it's moments like this that make every mundane moment of my life right now so very worth it!

a little sean jr.....

Yup, that's right, Sean and Chloe are having a boy! They went for their ultrasound last week, and wanted to find out the sex, so we now know that in about 20 more weeks there will be a little boy in the family for us to meet! So now comes the big debate about names - I always remember that being a very exciting part of pregnancy, coming up with the perfect name. I know that when they were pregnant with Maya they thought about naming a boy Tristan, but who knows what has changed since then (over 5 years ago...hard to believe that time flies by so quickly!) I did ask what names they were thinking of, not holding out much hope for a real answer, and heard Sean Jr. being thrown around, and Meat was added in by Maya! Let's hope the parents keep veto power in this family decision!

massage night tonight.....

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Our friends Lorne and Tash found this great massuer who will come to your house with his massage table and give you massages for as long as you're willing to pay him - and since we've discovered that Jamie's work will cover 80% of the cost, we've been trying to get regular massages! And now I really notice a difference when we go too long without them! Especially carrying Tiegan around in the front carrier all the time:-( So anyways, Jamie is currently getting the knots in his shoulders ironed out, and I'm up next!

I woke up with a nosebleed yesterday morning, which was so odd. I used to get them all the time as a kid, sometimes even twice a night. It got to the point where I'd wake up cupping my hand underneath my nose, and then a minute or two later the nosebleed would start. I spent so many hours in the middle of the night hanging over a sink pinching the top of my nose and counting drops of blood waiting for the nosebleed to finally end - that and holding frozen peas on my nose. It became the dreaded ritual, and my parents would often wake up to find a trail of blood from my room to the bathroom. Now that I'm a parent I realize how disconcerting that must have been the first few times, but at the time it was just a huge annoyance to me. But I haven't had a nosebleed in YEARS, so it was very odd to get one yesterday. Hopefully it's not a new thing - that would really SUCK.

I've started reading again, which has been GREAT. Before Tiegan was born, I would stay up for an hour after everyone went to bed to have some time to myself to read fiction. It worked fine, as I would then usually get a full night of sleep, and Kea was so great at sleeping in in the mornings! But then Tiegan, our non-sleeper, was born, and I just needed to sleep so much more than read, so my escapism into fiction has been on hold for a while. However, we seem to have reached the point where my need to read is outweighing my need for more sleep (and Tiegan doesn't wake up as much in the night now so I'm not AS exhausted anymore) Jamie is once again falling asleep with the bedside lamp on! I just finished The Red Tent, which was good - but I'd been told how fabulous it was for so long that my expectations were too high and I was a bit disappointed. And now I've started Reading Lolita in Tehran, so we'll see how that goes. So many books to catch up on, so little time!.....

this one is for you, Clare!!!

The girls and I have just returned from Victoria where we spent a few nights with Stephanie, Emma and Ollie at Steph's mom's house in Sooke. We drove into town one of the mornings, and spent a couple of hours with Alex and Clare, and I was told that I don't update my blog nearly enough! So now here I am!!!!:-) And actually, what I've been doing in this insanely busy time of ours is starting posts, then never getting around to finishing them so saving them as drafts, and now I have three of those to finish tonight! So anyways, major update tonight and then hopefully I'll find the time to keep this blog up a little more regularly!

Jamie and I had a date tonight, which was really nice! We don't have nearly enough of them lately so now we're going to take advantage of one whenever we can. Keri and Riley had invited Kea over for a sleep over, and Keri offered to take Tiegan during the evening as well! So Jamie and I wandered down to Commercial Drive and ate dinner at Havana's. The food was pretty good, conversation animated and intense as we tried to catch up on the past week apart, and the beer flowing! And then Keri (who's a member of one of those DVD rental places through the mail called VHQ) lent us a great DVD called "Pieces of April" that we just watched on the computer. Sweet film, I really recommend it for when you're in a more "chick flick" kind of mood!

I'm going to post this for now, and add more later.......Tiegan hasn't been sleeping well the past couple of nights so I'm seriously lacking in sleep, and tomorrow I have a busy day with a brunch with friends in the morning, and then meeting Kea in the afternoon for our symphony concert! So for now, g'night! xoxoxoxoxxo

the faerie queen

Kea and I went to see the ballet today, and it was just amazing....they have this program where they let school-age kids come to the final dress rehearsal for only $8 a seat, and they describe what we are about to see beforehand and then have a question and answer period afterwards - I learned so much about the ballet through it!! Kea was mesmerized through the whole performance, and kept complaining that there were too many people to watch at the same time as she wanted to absorb it ALL! And I love going to the ballet, I want to see them all! I'm just loving having kids because it's a great excuse to get all cultured! I've been taking Kea to the Kids Koncerts at the Symphony, the matinee's of the ballets, and I've been eyeing up few plays for the new year as well. I just can't wait for the day that she enjoys more adult stuff, but I guess I could always hire a babysitter and try to get Jamie out to the Opera or Symphony some night!

halloween birthday wishes.....

Happy Birthday Clare! Thinking of you lots today, and hoping that your day was as wonderful as you are!!!! We love you and miss you lots xoxoxoxoxox

It's Halloween here, and the kids had a marvelous time! Well, Kea was hyped up all evening and collected lots of sugar, whereas Tiegan walked around with her typical intense look, wondering what the heck was going on and more than likely coming to the conclusion that we're all very crazy! Kea had originally talked about being a rose faerie princess for Halloween, and I really had no idea what that would look like nor how I would make it. But then when we were out east, Heather gave Kea some dress-up clothes, including an orange and green glittery faerie costume! So I suggested that perhaps she could be a PUMPKIN faerie princess - and her eyes lit up right away and she agreed that it would be a marvelous idea! So we created a crown and a wand, painted her cheek and away she went! And then, of course, we had to dress Tiegan up as her pumpkin.....gotta do the matching set thing while Tiegan's young enough to go along! Very soon she will have a mind of her own, and I can tell you right now she'll be strong in her opinions! She is nothing if not very intense, this second child of ours!!!!!

We had a lot of fun carving our pumpkins, and since we knew we'd be going to Lorne and Tash's for the evening, we created a "puking pumpkin" with a bunch of candy coming out of his mouth - and then let the kids take their own candy! And then we spent the evening with the "werewolf" (Lorne's dad) on the stairs, handing out candy at their house. Every year they actually remove one of the risers on their stairs, and have a pair of gloved hands that reach out and grab the kids ankles as they climb up - quite freaky! And more than one kid refused to come up at all, even with a big bowl of candy sitting at the top! Very fun!