A calm February

A calm February, what bliss! I don't have many pictures to post or stories to tell since the Great Tree House Move since we've been staying close to home on the weekends. We've had a few nights and afternoons with friends, a family day at the local rec hall (complete with a "dig in the snow for loonies" event for the kids - Brendan came home with $6! - all charmed from grown ups who took pity on the fact that he hadn't found any), and a lovely weekend with my parents in Port Stanley. The picture below is of Dad showing Brendan the historical archive cupboard which has a vintage diving suit. Brendan announced Friday that when he's a grown up he and Rob will be rescue divers for dinosaurs caught in floods. Heck of an imagination on that kid! Heidi and Harrison really spoiled us this weekend, we had time to play a bunch of adult board games They've gotten to an age where they play quite well on their own given a pile of toys and more and more often we catch them giggling together, playing something on their own like "who can throw the hot wheels car higher" or "listen to the noise when I slap your back". This last one kept them roaring with laughter in the bath for 10 solid minutes!

Seeing Double

I took advantage of a rare weekday afternoon at home and went out for a hike behind the house today with the whole family. We tried the twins out in hiking backpacks. I had a pivotal moment when we were pregnant when we found a hiking backpack on sale. I realized that we only had one, and just like everything else we would need a second. On the other hand I truly could not fathom ever getting the whole group of us geared up and out for a hike. But I made up my mind, right there in the store, and I remember telling myself "Dammit, I WILL leave the house someday" and buying on blind faith that we would find a way to keep up with our previous lifestyle. Well? We did it. We went for a hike. It wasn't a long hike, and we went out of our back door instead of to the conservation area to make it easier, but we did it, and the twins didn't fuss at all (until we got home and tried to have a conversation about where we're going to put the treehouse). Yes, it took longer to get everyone in and out of their gear than it did to do the hike, but, hey, focus on the donut, not the hole, right!

18 Months

The twins are 18 months old, it seems impossible!

 

 You would not believe me if I told you how hard it is to get a picture of two 1 1/2 year olds sitting on the couch, with a bear, smiling and looking at the camera. Well, maybe you would. I included outtake pictures just to help your imagination along in case. But at long last, finally this afternoon, a miracle occured and attempt number 5 at this particular photo shoot succeeded (hence the late post, I've been trying since a week ago to take the obligatory 18 month photo, to no avail).

 

We all have a cold (this will come as very unwelcome news to my parents who we are visiting next weekend, sorry Mom and Dad!). The sheer volume of... er... nasal secretion, that babies are able to produce is astounding to me. Seriously, if snot were valuable Rob and I would be millionaires! The vicious cycle I find is that the more Heidi cries, the more her nose runs. And the more you wipe her nose, the more she cries. It never, ever ends!

 

Mission Accomplished

Wow. Well, 9 hours, 7 guys and a 13 foot high load later, our new tree house arrived safely at our house. It sounds like it was an endeavour of Herculean proportions, but they pulled it off, and the playhouse that now sits in the snow in our back yard is in a surprisingly small number of pieces. We found this treehouse, roughly 10 x 10 and 8 feet up in the air, on Kijiji in Oshawa, for a song (the owner was severing the lot and needed it gone). Our guys managed to cut the top half of the house off, then slide it down into one of the trailers using a set of ramps they built on site (newfie ingenuity, Chris claims). They then cut off part of the deck and ramp and then built a different set of ramps to slide the bottom half of the house and the deck it was built into, into another trailer. The bigger portion was 13 feet high cruising down the highway and was a sight to behold as it pulled into the driveway!

Adventures in Bancroft

We are having a family adventure here in Bancroft tonight. I started coming up here for work once a day in January, but the last few weeks have been putting in very long days, so we decided to come up as a family and stay overnight at the best western here while u do two days of visits. It's been fun at times, a bit boring at times for Brendan, but will make for fun memories every time we drive through; remember that time we swam in the middle of an aqua fit class in that hotel? Remember the time Brendan got an entire large bacon pizza to himself? Remember the awful snow storm that was supposed to snow us in but didn't amount to more than 2 cm? Remember when Brendan learned to play pool in a decrepit hotel arcade room? Remember when we discovered the hotel had an equally decrepit "shop" area with old broken hot wheels cars in an ice bucket for 50 cents apiece?  Never a dull moment!

P.S. Late addition - the snow did amount to a lot more than 2 cm today (now Friday)! Talk about eating crow after scorning the lack of snow last night! We just got home after an awful ride home. Thank goodness for chauffeur husbands and Four wheel drive trucks. We did make it home safe Mom.

Heidis First Haircut

Heidi had her first hair cut last night! Just a quick bang trim, but still a momentous occasion. We had held off for as long as we could, trying to sweep her hair off to one side, but alas, it seems to want to grow straight down over her eyes. She was starting to look like a shaggy sheepdog. We just couldn't allow it any longer. So, we committed her to bangs. And they look very sweet, not at all sheepdog like!

Speaking of milestones, Harrisons vocabulary has gone through the roof. He's a tiny parrot, and repeats all sorts of things; choo choo, wapple (waffle), car, track, gogurt (yogurt), waba (water). Heidi is holding strong with her one multipurpose word; da.

Another milestone over the last month; the babies are playing more and more with wooden trains. As I write, Heidi and Harrison are both sitting on the floor of Brendans room driving trains around a tiny figure 8 track. Where is Brendan? Out at Junior Firefighters! His room really has morphed into what he calls his "playroom room". Now if I could just figure out how to KEEP all the toys in here...