How about a little backyard patio hockey???? Nothing like partaking in a little Canadian sport...sans ice (we can't all skate anyways).

I hate to say this (dad) but she gets more excited about playing hockey than she does golf. I really wonder if it has something to do with the fact that she can really connect with the ball in hockey...and it's about 50/50 when she tries to play golf. Anyhow, when we head out into the backyard for some fresh air, the first thing she does is ask if anyone wants to play hockey. She sets up her hockey net, tries to find the ball (it's white; not sure who made THAT choice..) and gets her hockey stick. At that point it's time for a little.....she shoots...SHE SCORES!

Unless of course she gets suckered into being in the net.

And here's the power wind up. Trust me. She's got a pretty good slapshot. Only problem is her aim. Like I said....beware!

It opens...it closes!

I'll give you 2 seconds to guess what that title means. Your time is up. Mr.Mister has discovered doors.

What is the enchantment of swinging a door? Must be the same as the enchantment with the door stopper (really annoying first thing in the morning)

Yep. He looks pretty pleased with himself.

Take note that there is a dog behind him who is attempting to make a getaway...

Aaaand what's behind door number 2?

Certainly not the doggie anymore.

Hmmmmmm. I know what's behind door number 2. A crying Mr.Mister after he slams the door shut and figures out that mommy is nowhere in sight. Now you see happy....now you don't. I've rescued him a couple times now today......You would think he'd learn.



Is there a doctor in the house!?!?

Yes, we're back to playing doctor in this household. I blame it on Auntie B...who bought Lil' Miss a doctors kit for Christmas last year. That doctor's kit has really been put to some good use.

She pulled it out, opened it and set up her instruments; laying them out in order inside her doctor's case. Then she got out a blanket (to cover her patient up with...too bad it's a doll blanket and coverage is really minimal) and a hankie (an old dish cloth I gave her for some practical purpose, but it automatically got repurposed for some other venture) and her Elmo flashing wand (for taking temperatures with and checking inside your mouth). She trucked over to the Big Guy..."Daddy, you're sick. You're the patient" Daddy didn't care. He was content to sit on the couch and play along...mainly because he could still watch the sports highlights and be sick at the same time. No movement from the couch was necessary. I got to be the nurse...(Lil' Miss specifically gave me that title) and Mr.Mister...well I said he was my nurse's assistant. But he really just wanted to race his police car around or steal the Dr's instruments from their carefully structured tray. That didn't go over all that well with the Dr. So she pretty much ignored him. Anyhow, here's a bit of how the conversation went.

(Dr.) Daddy, do you like this? (She holds up otoscope - ear/eye checker)

(Big Guy) Sure.

(Dr.) Ok! (goes over and checks his mouth)

(Dr.) Daddy, do you like this? (holds up the hammer)

(Big Guy...watching sports highlights) Sure.

(Dr.) Ok! (goes over and lightly hammers his knee, then hammers the other knee.)

(Dr.) Daddy, do you like the cutter thingy? (holds up the scalpel)

(Big Guy) No! I don't want to be cut!

(Nurse - me) Dr, give him some medicine first. Then the cutter won't hurt so much

(Dr.) Ok! (takes the syringe and gives him a shot to the knee, then pretends to cut)

(Dr.) Daddy! Do you have to 'bless you'?

(Big Guy - blank look on his face) What????

(Dr.) Daddy do you have to 'bless you'? (Big Guy looks at me. I smirk)

(Nurse) She's asking you if you have to sneeze.

(Big Guy starts to make sneezing sounds. Dr races over with the dishrag hankie, shoves it in his face and makes him sneeze in it...a couple of times. Dr.'s appt turns into a 'bless you' appointment)

Yeah, this went on for about 30 minutes. Then Kona got a visit from the Dr., Mr.Mister got a visit, but he kind of just crawled away, throwing toys out of his path as he went (he's turned into a hucker). Polly got a visit from the Dr., and so did I.

And why do I get the feeling that when he's old enough Mr. Mister is going to get in on a little doctor action as well..

Except that I see he's made himself the patient AND the doctor.
Say AAAHHHHHH!

Out go the lights.

Well I'm a little disappointed. Went to pick Lil' Miss up from the dayhome today and thought...."Well, I'll turn the christmas lights on for her so she can see them when we get home" Of course, it's darker out by 430 - 500pm, so it's a good time for viewing lights. We pulled up in front of the house and....half of our lights are out! Only one snowman inflatable is actually inflated....what in tarnation is going on? I have no idea. It's really sad. I don't know if something shorted or if in our currently windy climate (some gale force winds are happening!!!!)  something happened to a string of lights somewhere along the line....I guess it's a mystery to try and solve tomorrow. I did some quick investigating when we got home but came up with nothing. So tonight our house is dark. Booooo. But I did get pictures of the lights before this happened. Let's revisit those...shall we???? Lil' Miss gets very excited about Frosty the Snowmans. So it was a big deal to put Frosty out on the front yard this year.

 On the other side of the yard we have 3 Frostys surrounding a Christmas tree.

 And here is a view of the house fully lit up. I do think we need more lights...and apparently now we really need more lights. The ones that went out are the bushes and the big Frosty, the top roofline and the right hand side of the stairs. Oh, and the lights around the door. So it looks pretty pathetic right now. Please though, take note of that wreath on the roof peak. I made that from clippings from the cedar bushes by the big Frosty. Pretty darn crafty of me I must say!!!  Every it year it seems I put off trimming those cedars back until the end of September or sometime in October. Think I did them the end of September this year (not really the ideal time to prune a cedar...especially since cedars don't do all that well in this climate). And every year I don't wrap them in burlap to protect them from the harsh winter. And it seems every year they look like they might decide to pooch. And then spring comes and they get all happy again and take off growing. Yeah, so now that I've said that....they're going to take a beating from the cold this year and I'll have 2 cedar bushes to yank from the front yard next year. Oh well...cross my fingers they do ok.

Anyhow, we took these pictures a couple nights after the actual installation occurred. It was a beautiful night so I bundled both kids up after supper and we went on a Twinkle Light walk. It was rather nice. There are lots of lights up in our neighborhood so it's quite a colourful event. And it was a good way to use up some time between supper and bath time. Get some fresh air, expend a little energy.....and voila! Bathtime a-cometh!!!!

Time to put up the Christmas lights!!!!  I always insist that this is a job for the Big Guy. I do the inside stuff...he gets to do the outside stuff. With my input of course! And this year he had help. Papa Bear was around to be the minion....I mean help. And if I recall last year, I was the minion and he picked the coldest day of the year to put the lights up. This year it was beautiful and much much warmer.

So warm in fact, they had a supervisor. But only one. The other one was napping. Which really was for the best. He still has not gotten used to being immobilized in winter wrappings. But as you can see, the supervisor was not really into supervising. She rallied herself and created a few snow angels...

But even that activity only lasted so long.

So she moved on to better things....like riding her bike up and down the sidewalk. Might as well since the sidewalks were clear for the time being. Besides, she had to show Papa Bear how well she could ride her bike.

A visit from Papa Bear

Papa Bear came up last weekend. Shocked the be-jeezus out of us. He figured he'd better come up while the getting was good. Clear roads, temperature above zero, no snow forcasted until later in the week. Yep, so his pipes shouldn't freeze while he was gone on holi-days.....

He arrived on the Saturday evening...got lost coming into town (ended up WAAAAAY opposite end and kitty-corner side of town from us....) and the Big Guy had to go rescue him. And he left Tuesday morning. Bright and early to beat the supposed snow flurries that were supposed to hit later that evening. Ah well...at  least he made it into town and actually came for a visit...all kidding aside. And he didn't beat the snow flurries home. In fact about half way home he hit a snow storm and got derailed for 3 hours while rescue workers pulled a semi truck and pick up truck out of the ditch/road. Yuck. But, while he was here, we enjoyed him. Lil' Miss put on many dancing shows (Nickelback...Grey Cup halftime show), and Mr.Mister showed off his golfball handling skillz (using up to 3-4-5 balls at a time!!!)

So we showed him the sights around town....

 Ok, not really. We went shopping to Costco and he pushed the kiddos around in the cart while we looked at Christmas decorations.

 Then we went to Lowe's (my first time there!) and looked at more Christmas decorations. By the way...GRAMMA....I think you've started something with the modeling of decorative chapeau's while shopping...

 But for the most part we just relaxed at home and enjoyed the antics of the children. Oh Mr.Mister..you're so easily amused!

And yes, Lil' Miss can get ANYONE to colour with her, yessiree Bob!

Everyone was up bright and early to bid Papa Bear farewell Tuesday morning. He made it home safe and sound...and no pipes froze!

Santa Visits T-Town

At the end of November every year, the local church puts on a snowy fun-day function in the park by our house. It includes sleigh rides (or one year there was NO snow, so it was just a 'hay ride'...), hot chocolate, cookies, campfires, socializing, and of course Santa. How lucky are we that we live just up the street from this park that hosts so many T-Town functions. Yes, definately lucky. Anyhow we all rolled up into our festive gear (assorted santa hats....although Mr.Mister's didn't fit...his head was too big!) and walked down to the park before it got really busy. I have learned in years and events past, that it's best to get there right when it starts as the line ups to see santa and to ride on the sleigh gets really really long. And such is not the best when you have younger kids (or if it's freezing out! Although this year was not bad). Not only is my attention span not that long, theirs is even shorter. Bet let's not state the obvious here.

 We're ready to rock and get ourselves in line for a sleigh ride! Note that the lil' man isn't crying. Actually he wasn't saying too much. He had just gotten up from his nap prior to departure and I think he was still half asleep as I dressed him and drug him out to the winter festivities. After we did the sleigh ride, Lil' Miss was insistant that we go and stand in line to see Santa. So we did. Line up wasn't long so we didn't have to wait. But.....

 As you can see, only Mr.Mister made it onto Santa's lap. As soon as it was our turn, Lil' Miss froze and refused to visit Santa. Even the lure of a candy cane was not enough to get her to move forward. So I just plunked Mr.Mister on Santa with the hopes that Lil' Miss would follow suit. Yeah...no. Didn't happen. So I went and sat on Santa's lap, thinking she would follow.

 Ok, so she came and stood beside me, who was between her and Santa. Close enough I guess!!! (Note that Mr.Mister is still in shock from being shoved into his snow suit. At this point he still hasn't offered up any complaints of any form.) Ok, two most important activities done. Now onto hot chocolate and cookies....and apparently roasted marshmellows. Dad brought our sticks and a large bag of marshmellows and had himself a following of little people at one of the campfires. A whole lotta marshmellow roastin' going on.

And so ended  our winter festivity for the day! Fa la la la laaa la laa laaaaa....BEDTIME!

Ok, so that post that is dated the 30th of November? That was supposed to be dated Dec.1.  Geez. Already I'm being bamboozled!

Out with the Halloween and onto Christmas! Gramma was so kind to supply us with decorations for our windows...in a multitude of different holidays. So that was today's project. Take the old Halloween decals off the window and refresh with Christmas decals. Yes, this is a very exciting process.

 A neat thing about the decals is if you don't like how you've originally placed them, you can rearrange to suit your liking. And the next day if you're still not satisfied, peel 'em off and create a new scene.

 It's always good to stand back and admire your work.

 Then of course, have your picture taken with your accomplishment.

 Aaaand start the process all over again.

And you wonder why my windows are filled with little fingerprints.
Little fingerprints and festive and creative cheer!

Be prepared....to be wowed...by my ability, prowness AND dedication to posting EVERY SINGLE DAY IN DECEMBER! Every heard of the December Daily. Well it shall be here. Right on this blog. Starting Thursday (holy smokes!!!). I will try. Even if it is just a picture with a few words....I shall post.*
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.........stay tuned..........

Dear Mommy,
It's tough being a little guy. My leggies aren't long, I don't know how to walk yet, and even though I'm super speedy, I'm not super speedy when you dress me like a marshmellow. Look at me...I can't move. This outfit has me rolled over like a turtle on it's back. I'm going NOWHERE! Even though I've stolen your keys right from under your nose and now I'm NOT giving them back!

Bulky dress makes for almost impossible manuverability. I mean really mom. You've got to appreciate my situation here. Not only does the added fluff make for immovable joints, but with this slippery 'winter' fabric my duds are made of, I might as well be a front wheel drive car with summer tires on. I'm steering...but I'm not getting anywhere!

 YOU might think it's a good idea to go out and get some 'fresh air'. But us little guys? We're not so up for the challenge. Ok, you might have twisted my arm a bit by letting me ride on the sled.

 I'm not going to show it....but I'm having fun.....Keep pulling! And don't slow down. Oh wait....my sister wants to go to the park? Yeah, mom, I don't think so. What am I supposed to do there?!?!?!? I CAN'T MOVE!

Yes, MOM. I am going to sit here and cry. This is not fun anymore!!!! Please take me home.

 Ok, I like this too. Swings are fun. And you don't have to worry about your inability to escape if zombies are attacking. Or big sisters come and try giving you a monster hug, but really end up just pushing you over in the snow and I can't move so I can't get up and run away or even recover with my dignity because I need you to come and save me from this face full of snow that is now melting all over my face....and  *sniffle sniffle*. Just keep pushing me on the swing please! I'll knock all attackers over with my inflated feet!

 Yes. I'm ready to go home. NOW PLEASE! Take me somewhere where this torture suit won't torture me any longer! Or at lease take me for a spin around in this toboggan. I kind of liked that.

A trip to Dawson Creek

Waaaay back in the middle of October, when the leaves were kind of still on the trees and there was no snow on the ground (that's my only official welcome to winter) the kids and I took a trip to DC. It's about 8 hours with kiddos. Our only stop on the way up was in Grande Prairie, where we spent an hour and a half at the Walmart store (lunch, leg stretching and dvd purchasing). I'm not a big fan of Walmart, and especially not the GP one (currently under renovation, both store and parking lot. You can only imagine what it was like on a saturday....lord help me....wasn't one of my greatest decisions....), but we had to stop and that was my executive decision. I've now fired that portion of my brain. Anyhow, the kids were good during the stop, but Lil' Miss had her fair share of tantrums on the way in the truck, and the Mr.Mister was as good as gold! Totallly didn't expect that. Anyhow I bought Lil' Miss a princess dvd to watch on the rest of the way to DC. That part of my brain still has it's job (check!).

The whole goal of this trip was to visit Grandpa T and Grandma J. And soak up some farm experience. Even though it was terribly windy the whole time and Lil' Miss fell asleep on the 4-wheeler twice...makes for tough steering with one hand over rough terrain. But it was a good trip nonetheless. So, you say, what does a citified almost 3-year-old do when she visits the farm?

 Climb alot of fences. Climb the same fence multiple times. Find different ways of climbing the same fence. But when the ball goes on the other side of the fence, refuse to crawl through the fence to get it. And that's 3-year-old logic for you.

 Survey the kingdom.Saying taken from Auntie B.

 Ride your bike down 'the hill' over and over again because your mom makes you do it because you really need to burn off some energy.. 'The hill' being the slight incline on the road (or decline, whatever).

 Do alot of jumping. Look out Louie! As well as jump, roll down the grassy knoll by the house....over and over and over again.

 Help Grandma J bake. Even though the best part includes licking the beaters. Yum!

 Help Grandpa T haul wood. This is a staple when you live on a farm. You'd better learn how to haul and stack firewood. It's just the way of life. So start them early. Really helps when you have your own wheelbarrow.

 Make Grandpa T colour with you.

And leave your little brother behind in the dust. Better learn to speed up buddy, Lil' Miss is really FAST!

*This post was writtten a looooong time ago. I kind of forgot about it. So we'll just publish it now and get it out of the way!*

So Papa Bear's b-day came and went. I had spent the day making a cake for another little girl's birthday, so he didn't actually get a cake for his birthday. BUT he did get cupcakes and from the way they disappeared, I'm assuming they were TAST-TEE! I sampled them myself a couple times and I'd have to say that I've got a nice chocolate blackforesty cupcake to add to my collection.

I'm happy with this cupcake business instead of birthday cake. I do better kids b-day cakes anyhow. And it was less cake for us to eat in the end.

Take note of the ponies sitting beside the cupcakes. Not quite sure how they ended up there......