I must be mouldy cheese

Yesterday as Maelie was coming out of the tub, she asked me how old another little girl was.

"She is one year old"

"How old am I mommy? " she asked jokingly

"You are 25 yrs old"

"Oh Mom, If I was 25 years old, I would be past the due date! I'm just 5!"

I guess I am pretty much way past the due date. Close to mouldy actually.

Another tooth repair done

Maelie went for her 2nd filling today. She did awesome as usual. You could tell it was not very pleasant for her. She said she couldnt swallow or breathe. But... it was all worth it she says.... for the iced cappucino she gets afterwards! She doesn't actually drink all of it... just a tiny bit of a small one.

She must be the only child in the world who is actually excited about a filling :)

Student Council

I found out yesterday that our little Maelie is part of the Student Council at her school! Her teacher told me this. She said that the principal wants ALL the grades to be part of the council... so Mrs. Bush chose Maelie and Mathieu, an adorable little boy. Is this not the cutest news this week? My baby girl is part of the Student Council! yet she has no idea really what a student council does. LOL

we eat underwear

i was in the shower this morning as Maelie was getting dressed. Suddenly, Maelie hollers in a panic...

"Mom! Mom! you NEED to go buy me more underwear! There are only 8 left in my drawer!"

we must eat underwear in this house, because how can one be in dire need of underwear with 8 clean ones left before laundry day?

it's started

well I never thought it would happen but it did... Maelie is listening to music with lyrics that most humans cannot understand.

"wa be razy wha me ho...zoooo... wa me razy wa me ho... superman...."

the only word we can actually hear clearly is "superman" in the whole song. Plus it has a "rap" style. it's horrible! but if it makes her be active and dance... what's a mom gonna do! :)

Our weekend

This has to be one of the first weekends where I didn't even start my car! We stayed hom all weekend other than a few hours spent outside on Sunday.

Saturday, Bill was working, and Maelie and I were exhausted from our busy week last week. We went down for a nap! Those who know me know I never nap during the day. However this time I really needed it.

Sunday we went to our neighbors to skate a bit, and unfortunately I didn't bring my camera! It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day.

We also finally got around to crafting a little. Jacinthe had lent us her daughter's Perler beads to try them out. We had them in the house for over a month now and never had a chance to try them. Maelie enjoyed it. It was quiet and relaxing. She was really proud of how it turned out once we ironed the craft!



Back to real life. I stayed home today, just feeling a bit under the weather. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Beautiful Green Eyes

Report Card time

We received Maelie's second report card. What do we have to report this time?

"Maelie is a pleasant and outgoing child. She respects classroom rules and usually shows good judgement when dealing with peers. She gets along well with her classmates. Maelie is an independant learner who is always focused. Her attentiveness and eagerness allow her to grasp new concepts easily. She enjoys circle time and consistently contributes to our class discussions. She enjoys reciting rhymes and songs learned in class. Maelie recognizes every letter in the alphabet and is able to tell the sound associated with most letters. She can read all the names of the children in our classroom and some high frequency words. Maelie is reading level three texts. She has begun to sound out words and uses picture clues to figure out unknown words. Maelie can count to 100 by ones and by tens and she can print numbers 1-19 in sequential order, with some reversals. She can easily make and extend a simple pattern and can name and describe all the two-dimensional shapes learned in class this term. Maelie is encouraged to keep up her excellent work habits."



How could we not be proud of her? Her motivation and zest for life are incredible!

I prefer to emphasize the importance of the teachers comments rather than the grades. However, for those who prefer the numbers... the report card is divided up by competencies. Maelie mainly has 4's (observed consistently) and a few 3's (observed sometimes). She is also very proud of herself and will just keep on working hard! with a little playing of course! :) She is already excited about being in grade 1 next year. How time flies....

need a little bit of sun

to melt alllllll this snow.
It might not be cold, but it is still just grey and not springish.

Memories from Winnipeg are that no matter HOW cold it is in the winter, and i mean cold, at least it is mostly always sunny... ! :)

(remember this sun Michael? I bet you thought I didn't have it anymore!!)

Surprises....

It is VERY rare that I get a big surprise. and i mean REALLY REALLY surprised. enough to have my jaw open and not know what to say.

Monday, usual routine, I went downstairs and let out the chins at about 4:30. 6 is usually the time I go back downstairs to switch them. (we have to rotate their time out of their cages to avoid fights).

Anyway I go back downstairs at 6 to find this:



Chichi girl had 3 babies! (one didn't make it). I was rather surprised as I didn't even know she was pregnant! I just thought she was well fed!!

So now we have 2 little spidermen. I had no idea that baby chins could run and climb at birth. They have no depth perception though so they just throw themselves off of everything.

The same day, my mom's cat Bidute had 4 babies as well!! I guess we were close to the full moon.

Maelie was happy to be able to babysit the chins while I was cleaning out the cage. They are fast little guys! (I think they are boys, it's not as easy as I thought to figure it out!)




Here is the proud mama who is also glad that she gets a break when we let her out!

Mysteries

you know how there are stories of people who disappear and the police end up finding their bodies buried somewhere in the forest months or years later?

Ok, this is NOT like that... but it was a mystery... that was resolved... and it was not a happy ending.

In the fall 2006, I was sooooo happy I had accomplished the first Christmas present for Kathleen's daughter Sandrine's first Christmas. It was a beautiful hand made personalized bib. There were three cats (which she has) and her name was embroidered below the picture. The other side of the bib was a fabric with mice on it. The colors used were the colors that she had in her room (burgundy/reds).

I was extremely proud of that bib!

Christmas came around... and I could not find it for the life of me. I knew it was somewhere waiting for me to attach a velcro for the opening. I searched high and low alllll over the house for months. To no avail. So she got a non personalized Christmas present instead.

Months and months passed, but I still had it in the back of my mind. I wondered if I had accidentally thrown it out in one of my cleaning sprees. Then one day.... as I was clearing the bottom shelves in the my cube storage in the basement... there was a red basket with a small rug in it. I picked up the rug to throw it out... and low and behold THERE it was!!! under the rug, nicely folded!! I picked the bib up and was mortified.... it had black stains on it! Mould? ewwwwwwwwwwww. I think the rug sucked in humidity. The bib had been there for over a year! I washed it with EVERY single stain remover imaginable, and I also used bleach for colors... It got lighter but it was ruined....

So mystery solved, but outcome not positive.

Before I throw it out, here it is, with stains and all....

Valentine Dance

Here is Maelie at the Valentine's Dance on Friday. I brought my camera along but only had a chance to snap one picture as i was busy all night at the cash bar. (well by bar, we mean pop, chips, chocolates and glow sticks)

Our little growing pets

Finally! Bill got the pics transferred from the camera to the pc so here is an update on our bunny & guinea pig



The bunny's ears finally both flopped down. We love having our pets here to hold and cuddle. The guinea pig doesn't enjoy it so much but I still hold it in a little blankie once in a while.

They LOVE fresh greens. Parsley seems to be on the number list! and carrots tops from the market.



I found that their cage was small, so I just bought some shelving from Walmart and just built a little area for them. At least they get their exercise and I don;t feel guilty if I don't have a chance to let the bunny out.

Cuddly pets are therapy for the soul....

Chewies

Bill really like jujube type candies. So for Valentine's I just picked him up a container of heart shaped jujubes, which we call Chewies in this house.

Maelie was making a card for Bill, which I will post in another post when I can finally get the camera and new computer to get along. Anyway, she saw the chewies for her dad.

"Mom, why do you get dad chewies and not me? I never get chewies"

"Well dad really likes chewies. Maybe you will get a Valentine's surprise too! who knows...."

"Well, it better not be chewies"

Huh?

gone with the old holiday, in with the new...

Now that Valentine's is over, it made me laugh to read a comment from Kathleen in one of my last posts. She mentioned how I didn't have my Easter decorations up.

Sadly enough, I must admit, I have ALREADY thought of that. My goal this weekend was to take Valentine's stuff down, and put them away, then bring up my Easter boxes.... mainly because as some of you may have noticed... Easter is in March this year!

The joy of making holiday related things means that you always have to be a step ahead. For example, when you want to buy Christmas craft making magazines, the majority of them will be available way before November. If you try to find some in November, you will really have the leftovers.

So this is my plan.... wash up the Valentine's stuff and put it away for next year, then take the Easter bins out. I like going through my big Rubbermaid container at the beginning of each season because I most of the time don't remember what I had, so it is all new to me! I know that I have about 2 huge containers of Easter stuff, and a few things lying around because there was no room in the containers!
I remember buying a few things last year on clearance after Easter, so those are also the things I am anxious to discover!

We must not forget St-Patrick's Day on March 17th! The weekend before Easter! I have a few items for St-Patrick's day treats as well :)Stay tuned....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to all! The joy of this blog thing is that you can date your post.So here I am Saturday morning, backdating these wishes to Thursday!

On Valentine's Day, my plan was to get up early and make a little treasure hunt for Maelie. Well that didn't go as planned because she was out of bed before I was out of the shower! Fortunately, the little present was already hidden in a good spot.

When we got downstairs, thankfully she had to go to the washroom, so I rushed, and wrote a clue on a post-it note, then rolled it up, tied it with a heart ribbon, and put it in a clean, plastic bottle (yes all of this was on-hand sadly enough!). I set the bottle on the table by the time she was done. She noticed it and started trying to get the clue out. She LOVES these types of games, hence why I initially had been hoping to have more than one clue. SO the clue was something like "look in something that we use for pic-nics" and then again, sadly enough, we still have our pic-nic cooler in the kitchen! even in February! so she read the clue "by herself" may I add.

She figured it out quickly, opened the small cooler and found a frog Webkinz, pink with hearts on it! She loved it!

For those of you not familiar with Webkinz, it is a great marketing scheme for kids. They are little stuffed animals that you buy is stores... usually smaller stores like Carlton cards, Chapters, etc... Walmart doesn;t have any of those. They have a special code attached to them which you enter on the Webkinz website. Once you have adopted this animal, a while new virtual world opens up! you need to take care of your pet, work, play, make a house for your pet, etc... They give you a room on the site, and then you can even decorate it as you like. You can feed your pet, play with him, go to the doctors, get a job, go to school, etc... I know it is awesome marketing to get people to buy the little stuffed animals (and now more merchandise) but it is a hit with kids. Maelie is not one to want more more more, so she is happy to get one, but doesn't ask for more. As much as some people don't like the consumer aspect of the whole game, in our case, with a daughter like Maelie, it is awesome. You earn Webkinz cash and then you can purchase stuff for your Webkinz. (all virtual) It teaches kids how to manage their account because if you run out, you run out. too bad.

Anyway, all of this to say that Maelie was happy with her little Valentine's surprise.

(lack of pics due to lack of taking a pic....)

new cookie

I tried a new cookie recipe. They had this recipe in most Christmas magazines I have but I never got around to trying it. However, I decided to try it for Valentine's. It is basically a sugar cookie and the inside is a melted lollipop. It turned out cute... but I assume it is hard to eat with a hard center. I guess I will find out when people sample them at work tomorrow.

new hair

my sister insisted that I share a picture of my new hair with her. I just got a perm. Maelie's reaction was "wow mom, you look funny!" It's a good thing my self worth doesn't depend on my daughters reaction to my looks.
Bill's comments "your hair is less frizzy". Um... and here I thought I had MORE volume now... not less!(never go by what a man says. they say what they THINK they should say, but really it never ends up being the right comment)

(oh forgive the non-centered, jammie look. It's hard to take a picture without my contact lenses on to see what I am doing. (didn't want a pic with my glasses with a yellow twist tie!!)

cookie bouquet attempt

well i am not all that talented making cookie bouquets yet! i was able to bake the cookie on a stick, however I was unable to decorate them like they do at a real bakery! I think I just need practice.... and maybe better icing and more patience!! It looks ok, but it is not what I had pictured in my mind... must try again! I have some taste testers around me who don't mind my creations though!

party like a dog

This Saturday we went to a birthday party. Is this where they get the expression "party like a dog!"

soon we will live underground

See that house at the back that we can almost see? well thats our house. When we look out the window, there is not much we can see!



This has got to be the snowiest winter in quite a looooong time. Make sure you not the nicest scraped driveway ever! Bill takes a lot of pride in his shovelling... best on the block!

New family members

yes I know, I am crazy. But I was unable to resist Maelie's need for a baby bunny. She wanted a pet she could handle... and our chins are much too hyper to be held. They prefer to run around. So we got a rabbit. and we got a guinea pig to keep the rabbit company. So in other words... the guinea pig is the rabbits pet.

They are very lovable. The bunny is very tame. They are both little babies. The guinea pig is very verbal. He whines if the bunny is gone for too long. Instead of keeping them in a small cage, i got some shelving and made a nice small play area in the living room. They seem to enjoy it and they have lots of room to wander around. I will post more pictures when I have a chance.

Birthday pics

We don't have our new computer yet, however we have a temporary fix... so here are some birthday pictures from last weekend.



Maelie and her daddy!

I look pretty young for 50

Maelie and I went to the dollar store on Saturday to stock up on a few balloons for Bills bday. We got 2 balloons with 50's all over them, a candle with the #50, and a few other items. As I put all this stuff on the check out counter, Maelie was singing out loud "Happy birthday Mommy, Happy Birthday Mommy...." .....
Immediately, I said "Maelie, it's not MY birthday it's daddy's birthday. People are gonna think i'm the one who is 50!"

Later on, Bill suggested "well at least they'll just think you look pretty young for age 50".

:)

Technical Birthday Difficulties!

Happy birthday to Bill! One day late on my blog (bday was Feb. 3rd) ... as for his birthday, Bill decided to modify something on his beloved computer.... lo and behold.... it died! So, so much for birthday pictures or wishes or updates of any kind! It will have to wait until Bill gets and fixes the new computer....