Karin Says...

Mommy home me.  (Mommy will take me home)

I want my hewmet (helmet) . -- bike helmet.

I don't like this one dress.  I don't like this one shoes.  I want this one. (usually pajamas).

Nodda wan.  The other one.

More Vocab...Karin at 2 1/2

Chance came home from Kindergarten and just HAD to get this stuff dumped out of his brain. We walked into the house and he started demanding construction paper and markers, urgently. He sat at the window and drew and drew and drew and then said I "had to come write down what he said right now" because he didn't want to forget.




I bought this dress for $3. It's a ladies dress but I think I can alter it to fit Karin. She calls it her princess dress.

Cookie time....

Cuddles at night..

"Knock knockwho's there" (knockwho's is all one word)

"I tired...."

"No Daddy!"

"Wanna watcha moobie" (movie)

"My poopy" (I've just wet myself.) When she's actually poopy...she's silent.

"MY DUMP TRUCK". As in, now!

Life very busy but looking like it will slow down a bit. Already had a solid week of taking lunch hours and going to the gym...feeling quite good about that. Cut another 2" of hair off....not much left now!! Someone told me today I look 2o years younger, not sure if that's exactly correct but I'll take it! No more Pill Pudding, I guess.

Chance's report card came in, he is doing well but still needs work on ABC's. Speech therapist wants (?) maybe to work with him on his "s" and "z" words. Phone tag with the gal is fun.

Karin's perfected the art of being two....hello tantrums, whining, shrieking.....all weekend long I heard at top volume: "Mummy? Mummy? Mum? Mummy??! MUMMY!!" Took to wearing earplugs by bathtime on Saturday. Sunday was a bit better, Chance had a friend over to play and so she was entertained by observing the boys, throwing mud and snow in backyard and building lego. Starting to really get a knack for that stuff, has stopped trying to ingest. Nice.

1 month time warp!

Caught in the act...trying to get up on the counter to play with her brother's Lego.
Anxious for snow much???

Christmas party face paints (Karin has a snow man on her cheek, but it's on the wrong side).

Visiting the Big Man. Very exciting!

...or maybe terrifying is the right word!

This month just flew by! We had a good visit with family earlier in the month, with good highways & good kids in the van. The plane rides, falling asleep in the van with the kids & change in bed took a toll on my neck so it has been out of whack, good thing the chiropractor is just outside my elevator bank at work, haha.

Curling on nights has been going well. Our team has had a series of up and down games but we're starting to see real improvement in our skills (ie. rarely hog a rock or throw through the house these days). The only thing is by the end of the week, sometimes it's all I can do to drag myself to the curling rink...the good news is it's only a 2 minute drive away from the house, so at least it's close. Cam's curling is going well too.

Work is work. :P

Kids are growing fast. Chance is starting to bring home lots of stories and songs from Kindergarten. They have a letter themed show and tell most days (usually they cover 3 letters per week, they finished up on "M" this week -- Chance brought the tumbled magnetite I bought him at a geology conference. He said everyone wanted to try playing with it, you could tell he was happy with the choice to bring it to school. When they covered the letter "K" he brought my kneepads, which he was really excited to show for some reason and said that everyone laughed at him...hard lessons already, my heart broke when he told us at the end of the day. Chance got up on his skates last weekend at the kids' party thrown by my work. It was held at the Stampede grounds, with an adjoining skating arena. Santa was present and we had a kid gourmet meal of hot dogs and hamburgers. Face painting, balloon animals, kraft kits to take home, etc. All in all a great morning and afternoon.

Karin has some new words these days: princess, food-ah (food), ehwant (I want). Also she came to me yesterday and was acting strange, and I asked her if she needed to go #2 (she usually goes around that time and it's the only thing I could think of that could be bothering her) & she said yes! We went to the bathroom and the big girl did her jobbie on the toilet! One less diaper to change yesterday...so today during her regular "quiet" time I'll be sure to ask her again.

Not a whole lot on the go today. The house needs some tidying up in places and we are thinking of heading over to the Farmers Market. On the way back I want to stop at a dollar store or something to get some craft supplies to keep kids busy on cold days. Yesterday was quite warm, all the snow melted on the deck and we went for a run in the late afternoon. That melted snow turns the deck into a treacherous surface, so last week bought some "sandy" rough tape that sticks onto the edge of the stairs. Last thing anyone needs here is a busted leg or thrown out back!

Oh and bought an order of beef from my friend Chrissy, she's got a friend that is a local beef farmer. Last week's was one of the best beef roasts we've had, it was even better leftover.

Vocab Roundup

Punkies = Pumpkins
Show!
Baddle = Bottle (ie. steel water bottle)
More!
Potty
Pee Pee
Buckie = Bucket
My Boots = new (hand-me-down) cowboy boots from Chance
Mommy Boots = Mom's cowboy boots
Whassat / Whassisit = What's that / What is it **

** hearing this one a LOT. Little sponge!

Visit with Gramma & Grampa

Had a good visit with Grampa & Gramma from Regina, thanks for coming guys! Had beautiful weather and had a good time hauling in some produce from garden: potatoes, carrots & tomatoes. Also we decimated our sunflower field, which made a huge difference in the appearance of the back yard. I hung up some of the heads for the birdies ("burts") to enjoy.

Had a good walk around part of the Glenmore Reservoir, nice fall colours starting to show.

In other news...Chance's first tooth is loose...could have a crash course in tooth loss coming up soon!

Cripes!

Wink, wink!

Can you guess where this is going??


Probably not...brace yourselves!

CRIPES! 2 mosquito bites and this is what Karin looked like on Sunday. She got the mosquito bites on Friday at 5 PM, somewhere between the daycare and the Green Park, which is a 7 block bike ride. When I took her out of the Chariot, she had two bites on her right cheekbone, and I thought "Oh this is going to swell up"...but I had no idea! She is much improved now (Benadryl, Benadryl, Benadryl) - but her birthmark appears quite dark and dry...I'm thinking from the swelling/stretching of her skin. We'll see what happens with time.

This is Saturday morning....bad enough, but Sunday morning was the worst. New nicknames: Hugo, Lumpy, Taz (this one fits more because of the language she's been spouting lately...she sounds like the Tazmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny).

Vocab Explosion

Karin's newest words:

Bapple (Apple)
Mee mee (Milk. Give me milk. Or whatever you're eating, I want it.)
Lookitdat! (Look at that!)
Koo koo (cookie)
Cha (Chance)

She has also starting to pair words together like "Bye bye Dada" - when she really means "Hi Daddy!".

She is responding very well to simple commands, like "Go get your shoes." and "Give this to Mom." Not so much with very simple commands, like "Sit" or "Wait". Oh well.

Supertrain 2011

Good vantage point from Daddy's arms.

Hmm...should I eat it??

Lego abound!


The project.

Finished version.

We visited Supertrain this year again, this time Chance fell in love with Lego, as there was a huge display set up with a working train going through various environments, townscapes, etc. all constructed in Lego. I think the Easter Bunny may be bringing more than chocolate this year....

Another youtube video...Karin trying out new words: "hi", "uh-oh"...which usually sounds more like "uh-ah" and "bye". She can also say "shoe" ....which comes out more as just "sh".

Radium Getaway / Carsick & Snowstorm Disaster

After a hairy drive to Radium (2 mins before we arrived in town Chance lost the contents of his stomach in the car, poor guy), we settled into our rented condo and visited the hot springs.

Chance was pretty impressed by the Bighorn Sheep we saw (plenty of them out at 8 in the AM).

"Mom, how about this rock? Mom, what's this rock? Mom...?"

Still perky enough to pose by the Mountain Sheep sign, after nearly 2 1/2 hours of walking. 40 yards later (and just shy of the rock cliffs in the distance), his feet were too sore to go on. So we turned around, put Chance and Karin in the stroller and headed home...

...by the time we got home, Chance was sawing logs. Zzz! Karin had to be quiet because he kept sleeping in the stroller for about 30 mins....she became well versed in the word "shh!" - see the latest video on youtube!

Unfortunately our weekend was cut short as it started to snow and we decided rapidly it was time to head home. This meant packing up in about 1/2 an hour and waking the kids up as they were fast asleep. They stayed asleep in the car and we were home safe and sound, sure glad we left when we did though, as judging what we drove through, there's no way we would have made it through those mountain passes between Radium and the junction of Hwy 93 and Hwy 1 with any amount of snow accumulation!

Time going by fast!

Now that I am back at work time is just flying by. It has literally been WEEKS since I took any pictures of the kids. That is my goal this weekend, to break out the camera and take some photos and videos. I especially love going back to the videos of when Chance was a 1 year old and comparing to now. Life seemed simpler back then when it was just him and I said to Cam that I feel bad for Karin that we don't have as much time to play with her like we did with Chance. Cam's response was that Karin doesn't need us to play with her, she has an awesome older brother to do that with.

I'd also like to start sewing PJ pants for Chance this weekend. I bought some cute fabric with dump trucks and tools for that project, he was disappointed that I wasn't starting right NOW when I showed him the cloth, haha.

Will have to fill out Valentine cards with Chance this weekend. His play school sent a list of kids to facilitate that project. Otherwise there would be only 3 kids of 10 getting cards, as Chance only talks about Riley, Ayan and Brianna.

Karin is starting to make lots of noises. "Ooooooooo", "da"="dad?", "bah"="bye", "muhmuhmuh"="milk?", "and "kajookajookajoo", which is my personal favorite.

12 months went by so fast!

Well that was a pretty wild year. Karin is now a one year old, complete with 10 teeth and a budding vocabulary. She says things like "mum-mum" or "num-num" when I am near, or when there is food around. She's getting faster. Teeth coming through left right and centre (she has cut 3 molars in the last 3 weeks), and we've officially started her on teething tablets (they were awesome for Chance too). Our friends who have a daughter the same age is saying her sister's name and "duh-down" when she tumbles ("fall down"), so we might be on the cusp of starting to speak soon too!