When will this weather end?!!!

So tonight, even more snow is falling. Today was icy and slippery, and now there is snow on top of that. Which will supposedly turn to rain tomorrow, to create slush. Oh joys - what a mess this city is in! Oh well, we can drink our water now, and our neighbourhood has not lost its power once - very grateful for that!

This morning I had to get Tiegan to preschool on time, as I was meeting up with the Cookie Dough delivery (why did I agree to chair Fundraising?!), and I was in a hurry because as usual at 9am I was running late. It took forever to brush and scrape off the car, and then I had to sit inside it with my foot on the gas while it warmed up as we do not have an idle on the car, and then I really had to go if there was any chance of me being on time - the only problem was that both mine and Tiegan's door handles were frozen in the open position, so I COULD NOT get them shut. I poured water over them, jabbed at them with my key, cursed at them, slammed the doors numerous times (and no, we don't have that fancy dancy stuff that you snow people have, like de-icer) to no avail. So finally, in desperation, I told Tiegan to hold on tight to her door handle, and I did my best to hold my door shut, and I drove quite slowly down side streets, only having to stop twice to shut Tiegan's runaway door for her. CRAZY! Yup, I'm a steller mom - I'm sure many wanted to stop me to give me an award today! We made it in one piece, sorted out the cookie dough order, and finally got the door handles unstuck for the drive home! Now I'm looking forward to the adventures tomorrow will bring!

My back is MUCH better these days - after a hot bath, numerous massages with arnica oil, a professional massage where I learned that I should stretch out the back of my thighs to help prevent it, many hours with an ice pack on the nerves and even a visit to a chiropractor......I could have cried in relief when the pain finally disappeared! Now I find that when I'm standing in the kitchen too long, or doing too much on my feet, my back starts to ache again but once I do a few preventative measures (my ice pack/hot water bottle have become my friends!) it's all good - 2 1/2 more months, 2 1/2 more months......!

It's CRAZY weather out here, as you've probably been hearing. After two weeks of boiling and filtering our water, we're finally able to drink right out of the tap again and now we're supposed to stay off the roads as they're so icy and there's snow EVERYWHERE! People on the north shore lost power twice, once during the rain storms and once during the snow storms, but luckily we haven't lost ours yet.

The girls have been nagging to play in the snow 24/7, so I've begun dressing them up in their warmest clothes and throwing them in the backyard for chunks of time - there's just nothing appealing about playing in the snow for me, since I can't go sledding or downhill skiing - wah wah, I know! Yesterday I asked them both if they had to go pee, then spent a good 30 minutes gearing them both up in multi-layers, threw them outside and not two seconds later, Tiegan informed me that she had peed in her outfit - how typical is that! Given that we have limited warm clothes around here (I mean, it NEVER snows here!!!!!) she had the choice to stay out and play for a bit, or come in now for good, and she opted to play in her wet clothes for 30 minutes before coming in for a hot bath! What a nut!

Here's some photos, a few from our visit to the annual Waldorf Winter Fair where the kids watched puppet shows, met cookie fairies and wandered through winter wonderlands - a very magical morning for us, while Jamie continued working on the house! Then a few photos of our first snow of the year. Of course, we now have way more snow in our yard, but we've yet to take more photos - hopefully it decides to stick around for a while!

Kea got a new pair of black boots yesterday as one of her birthday presents from my friend, and she is VERY thrilled by them - they even had to sleep in her room with her!

This morning as she was getting dressed, she informed her dad, "I just have so much fashion inside of me, I don't know where it comes from. (WHAT does she mean by that?!!!) Isn't it so amazing just how much stuff is inside one little body?!" I'm loving 6 so far, so neat to see who she is becoming!

Jamie and I spent the morning doing a bunch of housework and then this afternoon I've been increasingly imobilized by the pain of my sciatica. I crawled down to the computer to email an apology for not making it to an event this afternoon, and I think I'm going to crawl back upstairs for a hot bath and massage. And as Jamie oh-so-helpfully pointed out, perhaps this will be be incentive enough for me to finally book that chiropractor appointment. OUCH!

November 13

November 13
Originally uploaded by the four mckays.

So, as you can see, this belly just keeps growing and growing! I definitely feel all sorts of action by this little tyke as it tries to settle in, and I'm becoming increasingly curious to finally meet him/her! We realized the other day that we have about 13 more weeks until we're due - aggghhhhhhh!! So much we want to do before then, that seems like hardly enough time at all!!!

Spent the weekend down in Seattle visiting mom - so nice to hang out with her and to enjoy a relaxing weekend, I just find that the girls don't sleep well away so we always need to recover sleep-wise on our return. Tiegan in particular really bonded with mom during this trip, and was VERY disappointed to leave. We'll have to do that trip more often!

We returned home on Monday with enough time for Jamie to pack his bags and set his alarm for 3:45am (UGH!) and Tue he was off bright and early for week-long conference in Denver, Colorado. Which means I'm flying solo until Fri........wheeeeeeeeeeeee! I have all sorts of stuff that I *should* do to get ready for our busy day tomorrow, but instead I'm being COMPLETELY irresponsible by catching up a bit on the blog and then I'm going upstairs to watch one of the few chick flicks that Jamie refuses to rent when he's around! Might even enjoy a bowl of ice-cream with that!!!!! Have a good night everyone.

Kea's first lost tooth!!!!

Kea's first lost tooth!!!!
Originally uploaded by the four mckays.

Of course, the most exciting news around here is that Kea has FINALLY lost her first tooth! It seemed like all of her friends had been losing teeth forever and she was so upset that she didn't even have a wiggly tooth......but the inevitable did happen! When she discovered her wiggly tooth, she had to call everyone to tell them, and then this morning I heard a loud shriek from the dining room, and there she was with the tiniest looking tooth in her palm! Yay! Only now the tooth faerie has to figure out where she put that faerie charm she bought months ago for such an occasion!!!!!

I've updated our fall set of photos so you can scroll down to see the second half of the photos. October always seems like such a busy time, but a couple of highlights included an evening at the Mountain View Cemetary where we participated in their Night For All Souls. It was a clear beautiful night and we spent the evening wandering amongst the gravestones, listening to beautiful music, creating candles and prayer flags for deceased family and friends, and meeting with neighbours who also came to reflect and celebrate. Such a nice contrast to how gawdy Halloween has become in many ways!
Speaking of which, the kids had a blast on Halloween Night - we trick-or-treated up and down our street and then headed over to 21st and Yukon to see the Taylors. After two blocks they both felt that they had more than enough candy so didn't want to trick-or-treat anymore....which suited us fine as it was quite a chilly night! Kea dressed up as Ginny Weasley, and therefore Tiegan wanted to be Harry Potter. Jamie and I had elaborate plans of creating skeleton costumes for the two of us and the growing baby, but like many things at such a busy time, those plans fell to the wayside. So instead we copped out a little and wrote "MUGGLE" across our jackets instead!!!!
And then on Nov. 4th we joined a whole bunch of neighbours at a fabulous Day of the Dead party! A lot of fun for all, but the kids ended up staying up until 10 and eating WAY too much sugar, and we definitely suffered the consequences afterwards! A couple of days of over-tired kids, and increased runny noses.....amazing how used we've all gotten to a pretty regular 7:30-8:00pm bedtime for both of the girls!!!! Anyways, a great way to end the season of Samhain/Halloween!

Renovation Update

So, we've been slowly working on the finishing touches of the major renovation we started just over a year ago - amazing how time flies, and how long things remain unfinished when you add in a big overseas trip and the first trimester of a pregnancy!!! But anyways, now the push is on - we'd LOVE to have so much of the work over and done before the new babe arrives, so Jamie's been taking the occassional day off here and there and working his butt off! It all takes longer than planned for, especially with little hands often wanting to help, but the kitchen is sooooooooo much nicer now with windows and countertops and such! We've bought a tonne of trim and are storing it in our basement - hopefully soon those will go on the walls, and then what a difference it will make on the main floor of the house! We've also ordered new windows for all of the upstairs rooms, and will really appreciate how warm this winter is once those are added! I'll keep updating this set of photos, as projects are completed!

Still alive.....

Hello! Just wanted to say that we're all still alive here, just busy and feeling run down battling the first cold of the season. I have so much I want to update that I feel overwhelmed by all the links I need to add, and then procrastinate on updating the blog at all! I've also hit the stage in the pregnancy once again where I can't get comfortable at night so don't sleep well, and end up needing a rest in the afternoon, which seems to take a chunk out of my day....oh well, nothing scheduled tomorrow morning so hopefully I can get the kids happily playing in the playroom for a bit while I catch up the blog a little!

It's been POURING with rain here, and very windy - kind of creepy at night on our old bedroom windows, and creating havoc on the roads. I tried to make a quick run to IKEA today while Kea was at choir (stupid bodems keep breaking - I finally just picked up two so we had an extra one on hand!), and I ended up going round and round in circles trying to find a road that wasn't blocked off due to major flooding - oh, fun! But poor Jamie had it worse - up at 5:20 to catch a 7:20 flight to Victoria, which got delayed and then cancelled, along with the next one, and finally 3 1/2 hours later he ended up over on the island very late for his meeting - a rather frustrating morning for him.

Anyways, time to go cuddle with Jamie in front of a movie with a mug of tea and then early to bed. G'night.