 |
| helping clean off the car | xmas hat! | frozen toyota chunk that fell off the car | morning stories by the tree |
 |
| a rare moment of sibling serenity | slippers! | dad and his girl | looking looking! |
 |
| alana is on the map! | on new years day, with oliebollen and appelflappen (YUM!) | post winter classic nap | originally $130, this kidkraft dollhouse was tagged for $15 at target - supposed to be on sale for $75! (mispriced, awoops!) |
Big news for me big news for me - I finished my photobook last night! I bought a groupon a looooong time ago, thinking I could quickly and creatively assemble all photos from our time in Trento/Vela, and that I'd have the book done and ordered, you know, a few months later, at max. Oh boy oh boy was I mistaken! I spent way too many hours on this thing, but it's finally finished and when it arrives I will be one happy camper. The proofs looked good and I'll be happy to have all of the pictures from our incredible year in northern Italy in one place - as opposed to the eight folders they live in in iphoto. Anyways, it was fun to do and great that the book is on its way yadda yadda, but I really feel relieved - like I can get on with my life! It's something I've been wanting to cross off of the to-do list for months - literally, months... and now it's done, woopwoop!!
In other news, I'm back into coaching action after a very nice calm, nothing pressing no-commitments break. It looks like I might be taking on a 15U team and I'm excited about it! That plus the Ontario Winter Games thing might keep me pretty busy - hopefully not too busy; and hopefully not too busy for Steve, who will be taking care of the kiddies while I'm dans le gym. As long as we can get more sleep than we did last night and avoid some of the three-year old meltdowns that have been ruffling all of our feathers, I'm sure it's all doable. Ummmmm... what else... I bought a panettone at Shoppers yesterday - a real Italian panettone - and I am excited to eat it. One day. It will sit in our pantry until some time later this month, and then I'll attack. First, I have to make a birthday cake (I'm thinking this one) and eat that. Does it come as a surprise that my new recipe box has more cake entries than anything else? It's true. Cake and cookies - these folders hold the most goods. No news there!
A few other things, in short: I'm going to a library conference at the end of the month (I'm thinking networking, career exploration etc) which will be awesome; I watched - with Bob and Marg and Steve - the Leafs/Red Wings 24/7 thing, and loved it. I love sport and it made me want to be an athlete again, to work hard and train and sweat and play a game I love for a living. It was a bit inspirational in that way, thought I found myself thinking that it's a bit of a shame that young female athletes can't turn on the TV and see women playing the game they love in front of tens of thousands of fans. With the exception of big Games (Olympics, Pan-Ams), female athletes don't get TV time; there are no big leagues here - for many reasons. This isn't an easy change - here. In Indonesia, we played in front of a full, crowded house, and in Europe, young athletes have role models that get their pictures in the paper on a regular basis (as opposed to sidebar mini-paragraphs here). Money is spent more locally, and teams receive municipal and provincial funding; there are no big league sports, though some pursuits are more popular than others. Sport pages are full of (mostly) soccer, but finding write-ups and pictures of men and women playing water polo, volleyball, basketball, handball and more, isn't an unusual thing. It all comes down to money, no? Anyways, I loved the 24/7 shows and love sport and love that more girls are involved in sport now than ever before; may that trend continue to grow!
Steve
Has a birthday coming up! The cake is for him, and I bought him a small birthday present this morning, hurray. He's back in the gym and trying to figure out if anything will come up contract-wise this year, and it looks like there are a few possibilities floating around, but still nothing concrete. At this very moment he's asleep on the couch with Hendrik (I just took a pic - above) - both boys are tired from full mornings of work and play. There must be more - but for now I'm drawing a blank; time to move on!
 |
| drinking tea and "reading papers" - I love it! great time spent with my boy :) |
Terrible two - what? Terrible three is more like it. Okay okay, most of the time the kid is good as gold but he's had a few tantrums and flip-out freak-outs in the last few weeks, and it has seriously tested our patience and our eyeballs - popping out of our heads at the wild and crazy antics of a flailing boy. He loved being in Bowmanville and loved sneaking down the stairs every morning to join Grandma and Gramps in bed, where (I think?) they'd read stories and talk. And watch the clock. Now that we're back home, he's had a tantrum or two more, and gets up and walks around in the morning on his own while we reluctantly think about getting out of bed. He started back at preschool on Tuesday with his mom on as the duty parent; it was a good way to ease back into things (for both of us) after a three-week hiatus. This morning he was a bit quivery at drop-off (heart-string-TUG), but apparently was just fine as soon as we parted ways. I just read him The Colour Kittens and Pussy Willow twice (each), though his favourite book might be a Tonka Truck book (or bird books), and dinosaurs, trucks, sea friends (ocean puppets), writing (with a pen) and play food - and tools - count as favourites. We still haven't unpacked any of the Christmas toys, as we're going to start a rotation - to deal with the recent influx of stuff (good stuff, all good stuff). What else? He's not eating too much these days, unless presented with a plate of beef and rice; it's his favourite thing to eat, hands down - besides Smarties and the top two layers of a nanaimo bar, of course. As for how he feels about his sister, he tolerates her, and is sometimes mean and sometimes very sweet. So... it could be worse! And it just might be getting better....
 |
| in Bowmanville, enjoying the sled :) |
She eats all of us under the table! And then asks for more. Soon I'm going to have to start making double batches of their favourite meal (beef and rice); last night Steve, Hendrik and Alana almost polished off a full casserole dish of a meal meant for two adults and two kids. Yikes... those teenage years might require grocery store robbery! And the sleep... oh, the (lack of) sleep. She was up quite a bit last night - maybe it's those teeth again? Arrrrrr. Her favourite words are mama (I feel like she says it five zillion times a day), no, me, cookie, that, that one (more like "dat one") and she loves playing with baby, reading books and doing whatever Hendrik is doing. She loves the bath and loves brushing her teeth, and will play with and cling to a crumpled up piece of paper like it's beef and rice essence (I was going to say that she clings to it like it's a piece of gold but a chunk of gold would be super boring for a baby, no?). Over Christmas she was really into Alphablock, but has requested ("dat one!") A Book of Sleep, I Am a Bunny and The House in the Night for two nights straight. This means nothing, except that I get to read books that I like! Hurrah. For now, that's it!
No comments:
Post a Comment