The basement renovation is almost complete, but the upheaval in the house is just beginning. This week they are also laying the laminate in the living room as the last part of the contract. Meaning that we have to move everything out, rip up the carpet, and have it ready for the laminate... This unfortunately had to coincide with my attempt to finish some painting upstairs. Meaning that most of the house is a mess with furniture in unusual places and no proper places to put the daily remnants of play... Mommy plans to leave the house for most of the day when they are actually working in the living room!In the meantime, the girls are having fun with the new house arrangements. The bean chairs have become a nest for the eagles.

One our way home one day this last week, we saw our neighbors putting out this bench with the garbage. I hopped out and asked why. Answer: no room. So Michael walked it home. It needs sanding down and revarnishing, but it is a perfect addition to our entryway.

Another quirk of the past while: We have been turning our attention to our yard, realizing that our neighbors aren't going to be all that happy with our yard-full of sunny dandelions and and two girls who have discovered the delight of blowing dandelions gone to seed. Thing is, we don't have a mower and the whipper-snipper we borrowed isn't working... so, to the delight of Grace and Jasmin, we went out armed with scissors. What fun they had - while being useful too :o) (yes, we do plan to deal with the dandelions properly in due time. This was just a stop-gap measure so more than one crop of dandelions doesn't go to seed and bless our neighbors' immaculate yards with sunny yellow dandilions.

It had been a slow, quiet day in keeping with the cool greyness of outside. A library trip with a new Winnie the Pooh video, baking cookies with Mommy, that kind of thing. Then, after supper we needed something more...

Two glass jars, the remnants of the beloved balloon that popped the day before, elastics, and baby spoons provided perfect sized drums. And we had a noisy praise parade! Mommy with a clanging saucepan, and two girls with tinking tiny drums, off we went around the living room and kitchen. What fun!

I'd almost forgotten how fun it is to make a lot of noise just because. Forgotten how joyful it is to praise the Lord with the abandon of a little child. Forgotten how grey days can be made golden... Thank you God for little children to remind us!

It's been a fair bit since I've managed to carve out some time to post here... I feel like I should have loads to say and lots of pictures to post. But I don't. Our camera had a near miss with death recently... the screen now only works when we want to take video - otherwise we have to use the view finder. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing if it showed you accurately what picture you were taking! The view in the view finder is much smaller than what it actually records, so it takes a little guesswork to get a good focus. Perhaps this is why we don't have any more pictures to post?

I found out this viewfinder annoyance while trying to take this picture:
The ladies' group I go to held a silent auction to raise funds for a refugee family and this was my contribution. I had hoped to find time to do it in color, but... life is full!

Full of keeping track of two excited outdoor explorers! They are thoroughly enjoying our back yard, small as it is. Feeding ants, following beetles, concocting new dandelion brews, digging in the dirt (I've left a section of the garden free for them to dig in so my vegetables might actually have a chance at staying planted!), watching the neighbours' dogs through the fence cracks - there is so much to do out there! Mommy is very glad that they have Daddy's skin and don't get sunburned easily because they inevitably get wet and strip! It is great that they enjoy being out, but the unfortunate side effect is the incredibly messy kitchen (and often living room) that results from the many trips in and out to ask Mommy to come see what they have found, or to join them at something.

Full of keeping the house clean... ish. We currently have three men working in our basement, putting in a bathroom and play room. And, while the mess is more or less contained in the basement, the feeling of untidiness and dustiness pervades, and the disruption is enough to have me out of sync with housework. But it will be great when it is finished! Especially since they also are putting laminate in the living room. Then I won't have to be so hopelessly trying to keep the carpet clear of spills.

We went to Jasmin's 2nd naturopath appointment on Wednesday. We got there a little flustered as Jasmin screamed the whole way there (about 1/2 hour) and almost managed to fight her way out of her car seat! I had to stop and put her back in once! This was bad enough, but Mommy also got lost, had to use the GPS (which she could hardly hear over the screaming), still missed a turn so was stressed about being late. AND, when we finally got there, Mommy discovered that the parking lot pay machine only took exact change (she didn't have any) so she had to pack everyone back into the car for more screams, go park somewhere else and then walk back to the clinic. The one good part of this was that Jasmin fell asleep on my back walking to the clinic! Thankfully, she was good for the doctor. It certainly wasn't a good day for mommy: on the way out she paid for the visit and medicine - and then left it on the counter! And didn't realize this till she got home... :o}
We now have more experimenting to do in cooking: using millet and buckwheat so rice intake is less and sorting through juices and fruits to see which ones and how much Jasmin can handle before it makes her sick. Not exactly fun, but hopefully not too disdressing either!

Tomorrow Grace is 3, but we celebrated on Saturday already. We went to a petting zoo/farm with a few friends. Such a great day! It began rather cold and windy, but God was good and soon thew wind blew away the clouds and it was warm enough for us to enjoy the animals and our picnic. These pictures are a very small selection from the 200+ taken, courtesy of YeaYea.

The very first animals were peacocks. For the very first time, I got to study a peacock strutting its stuff. This male had his tail out and was dancing and strutting and drumming for over half an hour! (Not that we watched the entire time...) The only time we saw him close his tail was when another male came out of the "house". The children were so excited and amazed!

Grace and her friends enjoying walking with each other just as watching and feeding the animals...

... and the playground was also enjoyed with many cries of delight and shouts of laughter!
We even had to coax them back off the equipment to look at the presents!
But once we got going, they were interested enough alright :o)
Some beautiful dresses and crocs/clogs from NiNi have made Grace want to wear dresses all the time, so she told me. Unfortunately, Jasmin seems to think the clogs are hers... even if they are too big! She cries for "purple!" whenever we try to put her own pink ones on her. Grace has been very good at sharing with Jasmin, but now I think Jasmin will not let Grace have them back very easily.
Mommy made cupcakes for the birthday cake. She was so excited to have candles that she didn't wait for us to even begin singing before she blew them out! Perhaps a good thing as that way she beat the wind to it :o)

Mommy and Daddy gave her an owl - a tangible reminder to her of the blessing Daddy gave her. We have been reading a fair bit about family/parental blessings and have decided we want to do this as a family. Finding words a 3 year old can grasp for a blessing was not an easy task, but the importance she attatches to the owl show us that she has understood something worthwhile.

All in all, a most wonderful birthday for all of us! No doubt more pictures to follow...