Six - The aftermath

Abi enjoyed a wonderful weekend of celebrations. Friday she celebrated her birthday with her classmates at school. Sunday she celebrated with friends (mostly classmates) in the afternoon and family for dinner.  It was all very exciting and exhausting (for the parents - us).  You've already seen her "six years old" photo.  Here are a few of the celebrations:

First Cake

Second cake (with family; made by Corey)

Reading each card; most were handmade by her friends

Plenty of gifts

More gifts after dinner

Crafts with the kids - melted bead suncatchers. These are Robin's and Abi's

Build a snowman (blindfolded) with the kids

6 against one

Roar!

Now a keyboard is taking over my corner in the living room. Guess I have to move into the tea room more fully.

Great piles of snow! Neighbour wanted a picture.

A gift from Spring.

Abi is delighted that the snow is finally ready for making snow people! An entire winter with great piles of snow that we could do nothing with except move it out of the way (and curse at it).  I  hear there's going to be an entire village of snow people out there. We may need more carrots.

Six

Six. Today.

Five. Saw Disney on Ice with her daddy (on her birthday as a surprise) and

 went glow bowling with her friends.

Four. At Steckle Farm in KW. Note the absence of snow.

 Three. Big party fun.

Two. Brunch with friends.

One. Big party with family and friends in Ontario.  Fairy themed.

 Birth day. First photo.

Newborn cuddles with momma

 Joy of the Father.

February catch up

Whoops, it's already late February and the last thing I blogged about was Christmas.
I could dwell on the cold, but who wants to do that?
I could say promising things about spring, but it would all be dreams.
I've provided plenty of quick photos and updates on FB, so I don't feel too guilty about neglecting the blog.  I do tend to update the fibre blog more often because I don't FB my fibre stuff as often.

What is there to blog? Firstly, Abi's birthday is quickly approaching. She'll be 6.  She's (still) loving and excelling at school.

Kiddos are growing, growing, growing.  I'm going to suggest clothes (PJs, pants, tops, casual dresses...)  for Abi gifts because 1) she loves clothes and 2) she really needs more.  Twins, OTOH, have bins full of clothes.

Kiddos and I snapped this photo on Valentine's Day for Robin and to share with y'all. This is the best of the bunch.
We're sitting in my newly cleared office / spinning / music room, which is the back end of the tea room.

I was finally inspired to get the room in functional order so that I would have room to spin and to bring my harp out of storage.

This pic is from before I was finished.

The weather has recently warmed enough that it is actually enjoyable outside. There is still plenty of snow.

Trying to give some size perspective.

Not much excitement to share. It's the usual life-with-kids stuff around here.

I was trying to take photos of knitting and the kiddos wanted to join in.

see

Hope everyone else is keeping warm.

Christmas and Yule happened

Abi's original Santa-handprint when she was little. Abi's now, Claire's, Lucy's.

We baked cookies to share on Yule.

bedtime

look what Santa brought! a kitchen set for all the kids to play with

uncle built a faery house for Abi/our yard

Abi and Trixie - her skateboarding pup

Lucy dutifully caring for the new babies

lil artist

I love how dedicated Abi is to drawing. It seems that she adds a new technique to her pictures every week - and she;s figuring out these refinements by herself.  She came home the other day having had to draw shoulder-up self portraits.  Speaking with the teacher later, they were only advised to look at the level of eyes to ears to nose, etc. She came home and started practicing.  Before that she had started adding parts to a girl's hair and playing with dresses. She'd also started drawing people in motion.  Clearly she has more drawing talent than I do - given that she's 5 and draws almost as well as I do.  Her teacher reported that she will look for examples of animals in books to practice drawing them.
Here are some recent samples - including some practice pieces I found. She's quite critical of her own work and will redo anything she doesn't think is good enough.

stick people - but here she was focused on motion; the stick people are deliberate. She uses an Ed Emberley drawing book, which is all stick-style images.

parted hair and fancy dress

her halloween picture - she drew the witch bent over to stir and later put in the cauldron

people - all from the same week; different styles

practice

for or of Lucy?

Changes

Whoops - can you tell things got busy around here. I just found this draft blog entry from September. Now it's November...

New school year. Many changes.
Abi's started kindergarten. Of course she loves it. There's even a pair of twin boys (look identical; dressed identical and all too, with nearly identical names...) in her class.
I start teaching this evening.
Same old for Robin at work.
Babies are where the big changes are. (Yeah, kiddo in school not a big deal around here. No tears. Just fun and the need to wake early in the morning - that's the hardest.)
Lucy still loves books, but she doesn't eat them anymore. Fewf. She carries them around. She flips through them, "reading". She won't sit long for a story, but we're moving towards that.
Claire is my girly-girl. Not what I would have expected for my "bear" (who bites; you've been warned).  She's all about the shoes. And the purses. And the hats (especially the pirate hat, accompanied by a hearty "Arrrrrr!"). And the bracelets.
And the baby doll. She's adopted Abi's first Cabbage Patch Kid baby, which of course Abi never had any interest in because she had no transitional objects. Lucy is the same as Abi in that regard. Abi loves her dolls now, but she remains fickle. She cycles through favourites.

Claire is also my kissy-face. She gives the best kisses.
Lucy is Abi's baby - and not just because Abi says so. Lucy asks for Abi, chooses Abi to play with, etc.

November additions:
Bedroom is coming around. But still unfinished.
University term in its last month.
Abi's loving school still, but I'm finding the morning schedule rushed and poor for babies. It throws off nap possibilities, forces babies to wake earlier than they might otherwise, and it's only going to get worse in winter as bundling will take 3x as long.
Halloween was fun. Kiddos went out with my niece and nephew. I stayed home alone to give out candy - while knitting a sleeve at the door.
 Let me dig up a couple of pictures to make your visit worthwhile.
Or better yet, how about this adorable video.

Summer Fun

Swinging at the park with great-aunty B

Running in the park

Being silly

An appropriate costume for Claire

Wandering with the kangaroos and emus at the zoo

Spending a day with the Girls at the zoo

Painting a bird feeder this afternoon