no more rat-nests!!!

So tonight I was combing Kea's hair, which was really ratty because it had been about 2 weeks, and she just said "I really want to cut my hair, up to my shoulders"... so we did it! It was crazy how hard it was for me to make that first cut, one of her beautiful curls reached all the way down to her bum! But a)it really was a pain in the butt to comb it out and try to take care of it, b)I do really hate all the attention she gets for how beautiful her hair is (ie as if that was the most important aspect of her and also encouraging such vanity!) and c) it's her body, so her choice! So I cut away, and now we'll see what it looks like tomorrow - I suspect that I'll be cutting little bits here and there as I'm sure it's a wee bit uneven. At least we weren't going for bangs or anything - I have such memories of crooked bangs growing up! Jamie took some photos on his digital camera which he'll upload at work tomorrow and then I'll post one! Tiegan watched the whole thing, and at the end climbed up on the chair herself and INSISTED that we cut her hair too - so we made a really big deal of cutting one little strand and she was happy with that!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

It's a beautiful sunny day today, and Kea, Tiegan and I are having pancakes with a candle in it this morning in honour of mom's birthday - wish you were here to celebrate with us, Mom....we're sending you lots of love!!!

A friend of Mom's sent us some photos of our birthday celebrations for Mom's 26th birthday, so I thought I'd post them on here - it's so much fun to get a glimpse of our lives way back then! I have no memories whatsoever from this moment, and in fact, I barely recognize that it's Clare and I in the photo! Jamie looked at the photos, though, and was really struck by how much he saw Tiegan in my face!

gotta watch out for those giant salami's...

....they can really get you!
The kids at Kea's preschool were talking on and off about the tsunami, and so Joan and Maria decided to sit down and talk about it in detail with them, and they've decided to bake cookies to sell to some of the church ladies and raise money for the tsunami relief. Of course, what my daughter takes from the whole discussion - we're sitting down at dinner and she says, "you know, there's these big salamis and they come and knock down your house and sometimes people die." Wow, what a confusing place this world can be!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not such a baby anymore!

I can't believe how quickly Tiegan is growing up right now....in the past couple of weeks she seems to have made the transition from baby to toddler, and a very independent toddler at that! It just seems like all of a sudden she's much more interested in what her big sister is doing, and less interested in nursing and cuddling with her mom. Which is kind of exciting for me, and gives me much more independence, but I also find it alarming how quickly the second baby grows up. Will the third go even quicker? How is it possible to savour those baby moments even more?!!!
She's discovered how much she loves to paint on the easel, and has learned how to climb up onto the table top out on our sunroom to draw with her big sister. They spend hours out there, riding their trike and bike, painting and drawing. Tiegan is obsessed with all of our shoes and has becoome quite skilled at wearing Jamie's sandals all over the house. She has discovered the joys of dress-up, and stuffs all sorts of things into bags and carries three or four of them at a time! It's such a fun age! And frustrating! She will no longer happily sit in her highchair, or drink from a sippy cup, so she makes all sorts of messes. Sometimes on purpose, so that she can run and grab a (usually freshly washed) tea towel to clean it up! This morning I made oatmeal for everyone, and she kind of played with hers for a bit, then dumped it all over her chair, and now is happily sitting in Kea's old seat and eating her leftover oatmeal. It is exactly the same, right down to the matching yellow bowls, and yet there's a huge difference for her in that it belongs to her coveted older sister! What a nut!

PS I can't seem to figure out how to make the photos smaller, so my previous entry keeps getting pushed down the page. Still a few querks to figure out, I see!!!

funky snake!

I'm so excited that I've now figured out how to post photos on my blog - I'm so very computer illiterate and I know I'm moving at a 'snake's' pace, but this is a sign of my progress! Thanks to my ever-so-patient sister Clare!!!
Speaking of which, Clare and Alex were over for the weekend - as was my Mom, Tyson for an afternoon and then Dad for Sunday afternoon, a true family weekend! I really enjoyed seeing everyone, and it was so nice and relaxing just hanging out! Jamie was thrilled, as he'd jarred the CD player a bit when moving it inside our cabinet and we couldn't get it to work again. So once Alex arrived, they took the whole thing apart, figured out all the different parts, played around here and there and by the next morning they had it working again! YAAAAAAAAY! I have to admit that I was personally a bit skeptical (some would call my attitude quite negative, though I also knew that it was broken to begin with so who cares if it got more broken?!!!) so I was very pleasantly surprised when it all worked out in the end! I mean, I love listening to CBC radio, especially in the morning, but by the time the evening rolls around they begin repeating a lot of their programing and by then I've had enough of it and now I can listen to some of our newly acquired CD's again!
Back to my family's visit, we exchanged gifts with Clare and Alex this trip as we haven't seen them since well before Christmas. Clare found the most awesome puzzle book for Kea, with 6 puzzles of mermaids and faeries, how very perfect for her! She knit Jamie a sleeve for his to-go mug, got me a bunch of great crafting supplies and made me some fun writing paper, but I have to admit that my most favourite gift from them was this AWESOME snake scarf that she knit herself for Tiegan! She wears it everyday and we get comments on it all the time - so much fun! I'm even posting a photo for everyone here to see too! I need to figure out how to make them......and give them to all the kids in my life!

Happy Imbolc!

So today we celebrated Imbolc - something I read about in various books but have no clue how to pronounce! It means we're halfway through winter, though, and especially here in Vancouver, seeing the early signs of spring! YAAAAAAAAAAAY! We had Steph, Emma and Ollie over for dinner, and I made chili with sun bread, sprout salad and then a great molasses cake for dessert - it's a dark brown rich cake, in which I baked some super-clean loonies for the kids to find, and then covered it with icecream. It's meant to symbolize the snow of winter over top the soil, and the soil containing treasures waiting to come out - anyways, the kids had fun with it!
I've been researching the seasonal changes and different celebrations that go along with them, and am enjoying trying to incorporate various things into our daily life. Though I find more and more that I'm so much more an idea person, and I find it hard to actually do it myself. Or, I'll start it but not actually finish it. Thank goodness I have a husband who really enjoys what I have to offer, and is more than willing to support me when I need it - more often than not he's the guy cutting 100 pieces of paper for birth announcements, or cleaning the dining room for a dinner I plan, or buying lima beans for a project I've planned, and so rarely does he get any recognition for it - what a guy! (heart)

I actually wrote a big long post a couple of days ago, but our internet keeps going down and so I lost it. What happened was I pressed "publish post" and then noticed that the internet was down, so before it went to the next screen I tried to highlight it all and "copy" it. However, Tiegan decided at that moment to climb onto our dining room table (she is such a daredevil - though I'm proud to say no goose-eggs in 2 1/2 weeks!) so I had to abandon the highlighting to grab her, and then it was all lost. Argh. Our internet connection drives me INSANE!

Most of what I was talking about was what an incredible weekend we had. Very productive (cleaning/sorting/getting rid of stuff/taking a door out of our kitchen/etc), very relaxing (reading, watching Buffy, talking, hanging out, going to Bean Around the World for muffins) and quite social too (party with Kera as she was in town for the weekend, I had brunch with a girlfriend for 2 hours while Tiegan napped, and then Sat. night I went out to the late show with another girlfriend) I love weekends like that, though I still wish Jamie had 3 day weekends - I really love having him home and find it kind of lonely with just me and the kids on Mondays!