Another week

We are coming up on a very busy week - I'm cooking for our volunteer retreat (Mon-Thur). Planning, baking, shopping, cooking and just a little bit of spoiling for 20 young Germans between 19-21. This will be the last time we'll see most of them so I'm looking forward to having them at the mission next week. So I'm not sure if I'd get a post in then so here's at least something.

80's Day at school for Katie. Memories anyone??? I didn't want to tackle the fan bangs, but figured the side pony was something both Katie and I could handle.

SISTERLY LOVE
I am still so happy that Katie and Maya seem to have figured out how to play together!!! The only downside is that it seems they must make a huge mess doing so. I guess they usually are pretty good at cleaning it up so I'll just have to learn to not look and just listen to them playing happily together.

Taking tackle hug to a whole new level. Yes, they were both having fun!

Giggles all the way around!

Hope you enjoyed the short spell of hot summer and that it didn't spoil the pleasure of warm spring.

Blessings to all, Ursi

Sunday Afternoon Walk

A post two days in a row!!! At least this one will be shorter:)

After church and a nice afternoon nap we all headed to a nearby Conservation are for a little walk.

Jeff enjoyed having Gordie along too and the girls did great. We did one very small loop as Maya was still dragging from getting worken up from her nap (after 2 hours), but when we had circled back to the van both girls wanted to walk some more so we ended up doing another little loop.

They aren't much for posing for me so this was the best I got of the two of them. The weather was just gorgeous and very hard to believe it was 23 degrees in the middle of March - but I'll take it!!

The girls. Maya got to ride on my shoulders for some of it. Gave me a better work out so maybe I can eat a little extra treat tonight:)

Checking out the "water under the bridge". We were at the park for about an hour and enjoyed it so much! We were talking about doing a Bruce Trail holiday some time when the girls are older. I think it would be a lot of fun. (Reminicent of our Thur Wanderung - growing up our family hiked along the 150 km long river that flowed through our town. It took us about 5 years to completely do it but it is one of my best childhood memories - even though my brothers would testify that I did happen to be grumpy my fair share of time. I guess the hiking took part when I was between 10 and 15 so I blame it on teenage hormones.)

Anyway we had a wonderful end of our march break and tomorrow we're back to school life. No more sleeping in (if you consider 7:15 sleeping in anyway)

Blessings to all, Ursi

March Break

For some reason I had trouble uploading pictures to the blog, (that's the excuse I'm going to use for not posting more often anyway) But now I'm finally getting around to it again.
katie and Maya have been wonderful (most of the time anyway) playing together. They sometimes just sit together and read, play hide and seek, of some form of imaginary play. These are the moments I just love watching them and listening to them. I love that Maya can express herself so much more! It sure makes life a lot easier and less frustrating for all of us.

March Break
We started of our March break by going to Plattsville for the weekend and spending some time with Jeff's folks. It was nice to go away for a couple of nights and get a change of scenery.

Of course you can't go and visit Grandma's house without reading stories together. Katie also brought her books from school and was able to read her story to Grandma. She's really enjoying the challenge and I'm sure she'll pick up reading real fast.

Saturday after Maya's nap the grandparens, the girls and I headed to NewHamburg to their new community center to go swimming. We all had so much fun. The water was nice and warm and Katie and Maya just loved to splash and swim and jump and play. It was nice having 3 adults for 2 children so each of us got to have some kid free moments in the water as well. We'll definitely have to do this again!!

Saturday evening we left the girls in Grandma and Grandpa's capable hands and headed to Kitchener's DelDante for a nice birthday dinner (celebrating Jeff's 35&36th, and Mom and Dad's b-days and anniversary). Thank you again for a wonderful evening, Mueti and Vati (and Uncle Marc)

Since Maya was on holidays at Grosi and Grosvati's house from Sun-Wed Katie had some special playdates lined up too. On Monday we met with a couple of families at our friends' house. The day was not overly cold, but raining on and off but that didn't stop the kids at all. There were 7 kids (2 JKs, and one child for each grade 1-5) They played outside, by themselves, with hardly any issues for almost 3 hours. Us moms got to sit and chat, play a game, drink tea, chat some more... it was awesome! Then when Rhoda and her 3 kids left Katie and I got to stay for a yummy supper and didn't get home until 7 p.m. (Oh yeah Jeff was home sick but he enjoyed the quiet house, just him and the dog.) He's feeling better again, just in case you're wondering.

On Tuesday Katie and I went to Elmira to visit our friends. While I was able to have a very nice visit with Glenna, Katie and Dylan played together very well. Among other imaginative play they found some dress up clothes and played Trick or Treating. They both filled up their paper bags with all kinds of pretend treats from around the house. We stayed there for lunch and early afternoon and then headed out to get some groceries and then to pick up Uncle Marc. It was a great Tuesday!!

On Thursday we were planning to go to a park, but on they way stopped at our neighbour's farm to check out the chicken, geese, cats, horses, cattle and all the other critters Mr. Charlie has. The girls had fun exploring and finding new animals around every corner and I enjoyed a chat with our friends.

Today I was helping a friend getting her house ready to sell while the girls were at home with Daddy. They had a lot of fun going shopping (Canadian Tire, HomeDepot - you know the Daddy stores) and in the afternoon they were working hard cleaning up our back yard! And when I got home Jeff was already busy getting supper ready (BBQ Venison Tenderloin - sooo good). And tomorrow we have nothing planned other than church. It's supposed to be a wet day so maybe we'll go to an indoor play center or something. Or just stay home and not much else.

I hope you had a wonderful march break and I wish you a great new week!