Vacation and other fun

We had a good time off last week. We didn't really do much except for the first weekend.
Friday afternoon I headed to P-ville to drop the girls off at grandma and grandpa and then after supper headed over to my friends house to my semi-annual scrapbooking weekend.
It was so nice to spend a weekend working creatively without being interrupted by girls or having to cook or plan anything. We scrapbooked away until 2 a.m. on Friday night, all day Saturday (earlier bedtime this day maybe around 11 p.m.) and then on Sunday until 5. Thank you Shelley for hosting us once again.

I am the only digital scrapbooker, but I still enjoy getting together with all the other ladies. I work on our family year book that has become the annual Christmas present for both sets of grandparents and for us. The girls like looking at them every so often, especially the ones I made for each of their first year.

While I was dropping the kids off, Jeff went out into the bush and had a successful hunt!!! I was so excited to hear that he had an awesome start for his vacation. Today he went to cut it up and we are looking forward to many a venison dinner.

Now that we have meat in the freezer Jeff is out for what he calls a hat rack. Trophy buck only from now on.

The other day Maya did not want to settle at night, so we closed the door and let her cry for a bit. After a short while she settled down and we figured that she went off to sleep. When we checked on her before we went to bed this is how we found her:

She must have been very tired that she didn't climb back into bed, but just half craweld under it.

Aunt Brenda, the blankie that you gave her for her first Christmas has become HER blankie. Katie never attached herself to any transitional object, but Maya sure does like her blankie.

Katie had a family Pumpkin carving day at school last week. We had a lot of fun measuring, exploring and then carving her pumpkin.

Katie drew the eyes and the mouth and helped empty out all the seeds. We were supposed to count the seeds, but I stopped after 130 (less then half of them counted)

We are looking forward to Halloween on Monday and I'll try my best to take pics and put them on the blog for you.

And another week has come and gone

We've had a busy, but a good week. I think one of the highlights was my Tues morning ladies' Bible study back in Elmira that I've decided is worth the 45 min drive. It is so nice to still feel at home at our old church and have good friends there. My low was probably yesterday when I was crying my eyes out because sometimes parenting is just so hard! I'm sure all you parents out there have had moments like that. I told Jeff that I can't even have a mental/emotional breakdown without getting interrupted by my kids. But really the girls are so wonderful and I love them both so much!
Katie being her mischievious self

She got a hold of my camera and went on a photo hunt

Sneaking up on Maya

Getting closer....

Gotcha!!

Maya got to practice for halloween. She was wearing the same doggie outfit last year, but this year it actually fits her.

Having a cutie moment. She steps onto the little car to reach the books and then sits down and reads quitely. (That happens maybe about once a month - all the other times she doesn't slow down long enought to sit and read a whole book)

THE RABBITS

This is our 3rd batch of baby rabbits. Blackie had 9 little ones and they are now at the perfect cute stage. Their eyes are open and they are starting to come out of their nestboxes.

The girls being very good and gentle.

Their attention span is fairly short though so the rabbits don't get smothered too much

Jeff's shed is finally operational. We have 6 large cages plus the one with the mommy and babies (outside). In a couple of weeks when the babies are weaned we'll process our older rabbits to make room in the shed.

I have no idea why, but this is how Katie watched a good part of her show this morning.

RETREAT

This weekend we had another church for a retreat. We've really enjoyed spending time with them and eating their yummy food:)

The weather was just perfect today for a wonderful picnic lunch under a beautiful fall tree.

Spending some time with my girls. They grow up so fast! It won't be long before they'll be able to read their own books, so I'll enjoy the time we have snuggling and reading together.

Tomorrow we are heading out to Jeff's parents for a couple of days and my brother Marc will join us on Monday for Thanksgiving dinner. We're looking forward to some special family time. Maya and Katie have been asking to see Grandma and Grandpa all week, finally we get to say "Yes, today we're going to see them!"

This and That

As usual we're busy with not much to show for, but usually we have fun, often the kids are playing nicely, often they're not. But such is life with young children. This post isn't really about anything, but giving glimpses of some of what we've been up to.
Daddy has a way of playing with the girls. I tend to just sit down and read a book with them between doing other stuff, but I know the girls love it when Daddy gets on the floor with them and plays. Lots of fun playing horsies.

Some of my entries to the local fair. Very happy about my first price for the banana bread. Jeff got a 2nd and 3rd for tallest sunflower and biggest sunflower head. I also got 3 more 3rd for my Zopf (bread), zucchini loaf and zucchini relish. The price money was just enough to pay the entrance fee to the fair. Even swap, works for me.

Wed. mornings Maya and I go to our church for coffee hour and quilting. Maya usually plays quite nicely before everyone else gets there for coffee, then she is a little social butterfly and entertainer while the gang is there drinking coffee and eating treats, and then after when I go back to quilting she usually watches a kids video. It works quite well.

This is the quilt we're working on right now. It is so cute. Very month has a little picture. If it were for sale I would love to get a quilt like that for each of the girls. Maybe when they're a little older. All we do is doing the sowing together, the patchwork is done by someone else. Who knows, once the girls are both in school I might take up the patchwork part of it too. And yet I have a feeling that my days will be busy even when both girls are gone for the day. And anyway that's another 2 years away. For now I'll enjoy the Wed morning and leave the rest to dreaming.

Anyway, it's time to go feed the family. I hope you have a great weekend.

Fall Family Day

Last weekend we had our annual Fall Family day. Basically it's just an open house of the mission with coffee&tea, wiener roast, games, crafts etc. We set up in pouring rain on Friday, but Saturday turned out beautiful (despite the cloomy forecast). We probably had about 50 people out, most from Toronto and it looked like they all had a great time.

Coffee station. The donuts disapeared in a hurry, but I don't think anyone went hungry. We had lots of hotdogs as well and some of the guests brought some food and fruit as well.

Katie and Daddy on their turn for a horse back ride on a nice trail on the property, maybe about 10 min., and on a real horse (they were huge). At the local fair that same weekend you would have paid $4 for about 5 min on a little pony tied to a wheel going in circles. The Percheron draft horse is definitely the way to go.

Maya and I also got a turn. The highlight of the ride was when the hores went "poopy". go figure!

We also had a puppet show that I think both the kids and adults enjoyed. I missed most of it because I was at home with Maya during her nap, but I just got the tail end of it and it looked like fun.

Mr. Apple Head craft. I don't like to do a lot of crafts that takes lots of prep work ahead of time and you have to throw out what didn't get used. Also, we have enough crafts and paintings at home already and I know other families are like that too, so I wanted to do something edible, low prep, and no waste. These apple heads seemed to fit the bill.

Adults also had lots of fun and got creative.

other kids just stuck the candy on without rhym or reason and then got busy eating it. Whatever works.

It was a busy but fun day.