First beach day!

We had our first beach day of the year on Sunday. It was a perfect day, so hot you actually wanted to jump in the cold ocean! It didn't even feel as cold as usual.

This year we plan to make it to the beach (any beach - there are lots to choose from) as often as possible. We might as well enjoy the coastal living while we are here!

Take a look at the beautiful mermaids I found in the sand!!

I know it's been almost a month since my last posting. We have been keeping busy but I don't always take the time to do this as often as I would like to. I am realizing that I don't always need to make my postings long and detailed as a letter would be. I'm going to try to write some shorter postings more often and see how that works for me. Y'all are be no means obligated to read every single one!!

Piddy dwesses

It started when Amelia was around 2 1/2, and Ember has started it up even earlier. Picking out her own clothes and rejecting certain ones. Lately they only want to wear dresses. In a pinch, a skirt and top will do, but generally, it must be a dress. Especially ones made by Auntie Jen.

The current favourite dresses. For those of you who haven't met them, that's GG and Grandma Carol with us; both of whom are harder to capture on film than Bigfoot.

I'm fine with the dresses, my only rules are: 3 day maximum per dress and no dresses to bed. And if it's really cold or we go to the playground, they need to put on pants or shorts. We found out the hard way how difficult it is to climb on the playground with a dress on. Especially a dress held up with elastic around the top. Although we have the rules, they are often compromised when I don't feel like having a battle, such as wearing a light cotton summer dress with a long-sleeved shirt and tights. It's quite the fashion statement.

our favourite "dress up"dress

And if a pretty dress wasn't enough, they often have to put on a "dress up" dress over top of their regular dress. How did I end up with such girly-girls??

We have some particularly cute dresses that Auntie Jen made 2 years ago that now work as tunics to be worn with leggings. I just can't put them away yet! As far as I'm concerned Auntie Jen can make us as many dresses as possible, since they will all get worn! (was that a subtle enough hint?)

The girls with Auntie Jen and Uncle Brent and Penny the dog.

Phenomenal felafel

Ron's birthday is next weekend, and since he has to work for part of the weekend, we decided to celebrate this weekend instead. It worked out well, since he got Monday and Tuesday off for volunteering a few extra hours at work on Friday. You can't complain about a four day weekend!

Last night was the birthday dinner at a Lebanese restaurant which was incredible. I love middle-eastern food and since we eat it quite a bit at home (hummus, baba ganouj, pitas etc.) I was hoping the girls would eat it too - but you never know with kids. They often reject food that they ate with gusto the night before.  Amazingly, they did not disappoint! I was so proud that my girls tried pretty much everything we put in front of them and ate more than they usually do at a restaurant. And the food!! delicious, phenomenal, wonderful. That is something that both Ron and I hoped to instil in our kids; an appreciation for foods from different cultures.

Since Ron had the day off, today we decided to go to the Discovery Centre in Halifax. There is a new display up with dinosaur bones, and moving "dinosaurs". As usual, the girls were more interested in the other exhibits that are up all year round. We had fun with the bubbles as well as the model suspension bridge, among other things. Perhaps we will try to visit again and they will be more receptive to listening to the information about the dinosaurs and hopefully there are no visiting school groups!!

Ember and a baby Ankylosaur.

Amelia and Ember helped me make a cake for Ron yesterday, but I'm thinking we will have to hide it tonight after a crazy evening of screaming, running around and a lot of crying. It's amazing how much the sugar and chocolate affect them. It won't be hard to make the cake disappear, since Ron and I love chocolate cake. Good thing birthdays only come once a year :D

Salamanders, baby birds and bugs

For those of you who have witnessed me do the freak-out scream-y dance when a bug lands on me, you know that I'm not a fan of bugs. It's involuntary, but I'm trying to control my ridiculous tendency to scream or flail about when I find a bug on my person. It's embarrassing. I also don't want to pass on my fear of bugs and creepy crawlies to the kids.

Digging in the garden isn't bad, if I have gloves on or I don't touch the dirt (and worms and slugs) with my bare hands. A garden tool will suffice when gloves are unavailable.

Yesterday we found a salamander in our kiddie pool, very exciting! I love salamanders, frogs, turtles... but I'm still scared to touch them. So lame, I know. I'm working on it. At least I got the girls to touch the salamander, they weren't scared. My girls are so brave!!

As cute as the salamander was, and even though I wanted the girls to not be scared of it, all I kept thinking was "do salamanders bite? I hope it doesn't bite them... I don't think they can bite..."

Ember's stickered hand petting Mr. Salamander.

Amelia trying to get the salamander out of the pool.

Could he be any cuter????

I also found some beautiful blue egg shells in our front garden a few weeks ago. They don't fit into the creepy "I'm scared of it" category, but they do fit into a nature category so I thought I would post a picture of those too. We haven't been able to find a nest anywhere, but it was fun to read up about birds and eggs. I've never been fortunate enough to find intact bird eggs, so this was a special treat.

So delicate and the color is exquisite!

And since we are on the topic of bugs etc, and I've been doing more gardening... I'll ask the question that gardeners have been asking for years: Why don't slugs eat dandilions??

Long Weekend Update

I know it's 3 days after the long weekend, but that's just how we roll in the Smith family household... always running late topped with a dash of procrastination.

We had a great weekend this past Victoria day with great weather, lots of sunshine, and one run away dog. Also the girls got sick, so I guess it wasn't as fun as it could have been. Amelia had a fever with aches and chills, while Ember had the runs for about 24 hours. We all felt a little under the weather for the past few days, and felt sick on Tuesday - perhaps leftovers from Amelia's fever. (Now I know why she was so whiny, it really sucked - I was soooooo tired and sore!)

We did manage to get out and do a few things, but not as much as I would have liked. We made it to Point Pleasant Park on Monday for a picnic and a good long walk. The girls and I planted some flowers in our barren front yard. My little gardeners have been having a blast planting seeds and plants; Amelia was asking daily last week if she could garden. I have to admit, I love gardening this year too, now that I feel like I can devote a bit of time to it (and two little helpers to boot!)

Point Pleasant Park, sitting on an old cannon.

And oh yes, the runaway dog. Melvin escaped, yet again. Our fenced back yard is falling apart, and while it is on our to-do list to fix, we need to win the lottery to do all the things we want with this house. We usually tie him up, but someone forgot. We won't mention names. Usually he comes back within a half hour but this time he ventured further and someone called animal control. Long story short, he spent the night in puppy jail and we had to spend a good chunk of money to bail him out. I told him if he doesn't like living here, the next time he wants to run away he can stay run away. I'm not sure if the message had any impact on him.

Our little piece of poo, Melvin.

Fairy house

Yesterday we went for a nature walk to collect nature-y things (pinecones, moss, twigs, etc). There is a nice little path just off the park at the end of our street where you can almost forget there is a major road only 150 meters away. We found a little path that we'd never been down before and decided to explore. We ended up behind some houses in a wooded area with lots of trees, rocks, the usual. Someone had built a fort and there was a toppled tree with large rocks still stuck in the root system.
It was great to explore and much more fun to do now that the girls can climb over obstacles safely. We had a great time.

When we got home, I wanted to try something that I read about in a book - building fairy houses (or Faeries, as some like to spell it.) What fun! I wish I had done this as a kid!! We built it right next to our front steps, so we can add to it and keep an eye on things.

Of course, I have pictures....

Our finished fairy house!!

And I can't not put pictures of the girls up.... It's mostly for the grannies, not because I think my girls are the cutest things to walk the earth, no, that's not why at all....

And here is the best part. After they went to bed, I decided to take it a step further. I wrote a note from the fairy reading "Amelia and Ember, thank you for building me a fairy house. I love it! Love, Fiona Fairy". After searching for 15 minutes for my fairy dust (sparkles to the layman) I dusted the fairy house with the fairy dust and left the note. We found the note this morning and Amelia was pretty excited. She carried the note around for most of the morning (it's now probably lost in my messy house though) Ember... she didn't care too much one way or the other. But it was still fun, at least for me.

Home at last

We made it home last week from our trip to Alberta and phew! It has taken me almost the full week to recover!

The first of many presents for Amelia and Ember

All in all we had a great visit with our family and friends. We were originally going to only stay 2 weeks, but that went by way too quickly! We ended up staying for 4 full weeks and even that seemed to go by too quickly. I did manage to see all my friends, even if only for a few hours while I was there. It's amazing to see how their kids have grown and see how our munchkins play together.

Playing with our friend Rylee!

The girls loved seeing grandmas, grandpa, great-grandmas, aunts, uncles and cousins and of course what they loved even more was getting completely SPOILED by the above relatives! I ended up having to bring home a third suitcase full of stuff, as well as leaving some stuff behind for Grandma and Grandpa to bring when they come out for a visit later this year. Yikes!! Thanks to everyone for the Easter treats, Ember's birthday gifts and general "just because" presents. The girls wanted to wear the special dresses from Auntie Jen every day that we were there.

Cousins Matteo and Natalia, you know that last two

Although I miss everyone and especially miss all the free babysitting that 2 grandmas can provide, it was nice to get home. I was actually starting to miss my hubby (hahaha!) but I really missed my dogs! I have never been separated from them for more than a week, whereas Ron and I being apart for long periods of time is old news (one of the "joys" of being a military wife).

baking cookies with Uncle Brent

I'll have to write more later, because both the girls are bugging me for attention. They can't seem to understand why I would want to stare at a computer instead of playing with them.