We drove to Halifax for the holidays. We left just before the big storm... barely. It was beginning as we drove out. Thankfully we drove out of it before lunch; it was enough of a trip without having lots of snow driving! You see, Michael caught the tummy flu from the girls the day before we left... so our trip took a bit longer than expected, making the decision to do it in one day through Maine look rather a bad idea. We're taking two days to go back :o)

We're much enjoying our holidays here...

The weekend of Aunty Ruth's birthday we had a special Sunday birthday breakfast. Uncle Jamie made the plates special with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Grace thought that was a great beginning to the day! She wasn't that interested in the rest of the food until it was all gone from her plate.Notice also the colored-on place mat. Imma gave us each a colorable place mat to fill up over the holidays. We all had fun with that at various meals.

The girls really like Imma and Abba's house - I think there are more toys here than at our house! On top of that, Imma was able to borrow an indoor slide for the really cold days... It gets used alot! Thankyou Imma!


Christmas morning before presents we had a story telling and a song time to remember exactly why we were celebrating. Here is Imma telling the story with pictures to Grace and Jasmin. Unfortunately they were more interested in the drawing bit than the story. But later she made a short little book which they did really enjoy and took in much better.


The girls' main gifts were dolls and strollers. A very big hit! They spent the rest of the morning zooming Ju-En and Kar-En around the house. Grace immediately wanted to give Kar-En a bath and was puzzled by her sewn-on pants and shoes. She couldn't give her a bath like that!
Jamie's gift to everyone was a cooking/baking session together. He is doing a baking course at NSCC and can bake some fabulous things now. Here we are in proper jackets about to begin making spring rolls. They were yummy - only one lasted until the next day :o)
More later, no doubt.

We've had lots of snow this week. Grace and Jasmin enjoyed shoveling the driveway with Daddy. Daddy didn't enjoy having to do it 3 times in one day though! Notice neither of them will keep their mittens on... this has limited our outdoor time considerable since it is -12 or lower. I have to use the button on mittens of Jasmin's snowsuit to keep her hands from freezing and she doesn't like that because she can't grasp anything at all. At least Grace likes hats now :O) and Jasmin will tolerate one at times.

So we've done lots of indoor things... baking Christmas cookies being one of them since we have hosted one church potluck party and are hosting another for the youth group this evening. Grace and Jasmin's main helping activity...

The main reason for this post is to pass on this exciting thing Grace did today...
Just after putting a tray of cookies in the oven, I had to go hang up laundry to dry in the basement. I had just got down there when I heard Grace calling for Daddy (why not mommy? you'll see.)... and then Daddy asking me if I knew what they were doing and if I had left eggs within reach... I didn't and hadn't. Grace had decided to make eggs for her sheep (her current "doll"). So she had gotten the egg carton out of the fridge, but unfortunately it didn't get much further than the floor... the last of our eggs smashed! Jasmin enjoyed learning the properties of raw egg until Daddy began cleanup. The exciting thing was not all this. It came next. After Daddy's scolding she just stood there with a sad look on her face, and when Mommy came up she said to me, "I'm sorry, Mommy." Something we have not been intentionally teaching her yet. We were excited that this is something she has picked up - and not just the words, but the attitude and meaning; Grace was truly contrite. A great teaching moment :o)

Other happenings of the week:

Grace is fully potty trained now. She just decided, it seems like. She even cleans up after herself and flushes it down the toilet! Of course, there are still some wet clothes, but more often from a missed pour in the toilet than not getting to the potty in time. Jasmin is very interested in the whole thing and goes with her to the toilet every time. Once I even got there in time to see Jasmin pouring the potty contents into the toilet!

Grace really likes to wear this hat - I find it on her all the time. Now to get Jasmin to like hats too!

See the scab on her nose? She got this falling out of bed. reasonable until you know that "bed" equals mattress on the floor! We have a bedside cube table about a foot from the bed... We are still trying to figure out how she managed to fall far enough to hit the edge of it hard enough to break the skin. Almost as if she were throwing herself or jumping out... but she was sound asleep - until she hit of course.

We've been collecting juice boxes for a few months now to make building blocks. Cut off the top then cut the body in half. Fit them together to make an easy cube. We finally have enough for the girls to actually build something with them. I found this idea on the Net, and really liked it: other than the long time to build up a decent set, it is a great way to get building blocks. The only problem is how light they are. I think my next ones I will put in a bit of sand or something and figure out a way to seal them better.

This weekend we spent at church with the youth: "lockdown" weekend. Only there wasn't much locking...
**all the girls but one could only stay for Friday evening and not overnight
**the water was leaking profusely so the water was turned off at the mains so we had to gather snow periodically and various teams of workmen were in and out trying to fix it for Sunday
**Michael had to run home to download a proper media player onto his computer so we could watch the movie we had rented
**Michael managed to put our car in the ditch in the church driveway on said trip so CAA had to come as it was not recoverable even with all of us pushing
So. It was a fun and memorable weekend :o) I learned to play two video games that I actually enjoyed, and enjoyed improvising with no water. Grace and Jasmin spent the time at NiNi's and did really well overnight there. We only got one phone call to calm some crying down. Unfortunately, that meant that they had more than twice as much sleep as mommy and daddy....!