The life of a preschooler

We got to get Neve from her daycare one day, which is in the high school.  From here, we headed to the elementary to get the big kids and head home with the littles on the sled.  Instead of walking outside in the cold, we took a shortcut down the deserted hallway.  Emora decided that she should hold Neve's hand to take care of her.  They were so cute, I just had to take a pic.  I can't even imagine them walking these halls as high schoolers, but it'll come some day, probably sooner than I realize!

I LOVE morning light.  There are times when sunlight is just so alive, for me that time is "early" morning or at times when the sun is about to set.  It has such a bright, alive and transforming feel to it.  It was dancing through the plant, making constantly shirting patterns on the wall.  I was literally mesmerized- to the point that I started taking pictures and wondering if it could be painted.  That was one of the first things that I was interested in painting- light.  How can light be painted?  My favorite pictures are ones where there is light play- on water, in rain, in skies, on clouds, on faces...

Somehow, this second picture doesn't even look like Emora to me.  There is something about the angle of her face and her lack of goofiness that makes her nearly unrecognizable.

This bottom pics are from "Gymboree".  Once a week, the high school gym is opened up so that preschool families can come play.  The day care down the hall and their workers also come.  This day, the day care ladies played games.  We usually have a bunch of play equipment out, but it was nice this time to do something different. 

Last week, a huge, huge, HUGE jumpy castle was set up and the kids got to bounce and slide, run and play.  So thankful for this program as winter has been VERY LONG this year and still lingering.  Yesterday there were the prettiest big, fluffy snowflakes falling gently through the air.  They were so graceful, it was hard to be angry that they were still coming down at the end of March!

Gotta go make some tortillas.  I'll have happy campers tonight.  They love tortilla suppers!  Sometimes a little thing can make such a difference to them ;)

Emora's ultimate sledding hill

Although the calendar says that the first day of spring has come, we are getting terribly cold temps and more and more snow and winds-- it's totally awful, so I don't feel at all bad about posting more snowy pictures- at least they are true to this "season" and on a day when we could rejoice over the snow.

I've had an awful time with Emora sledding this year.  She has totally hated it and made it pretty miserable for me too, but this day, we took the sleds to a little in town park.  There are small, small hills there and little pathways.

Apparently it is much used by deer.  In fact, I nearly hit one heading to this park one night.  The park was thus quite disgusting with deer scat all over and even blood spills (dog attack?), but the kids didn't complain about it.  I did try to cover up some spots where they were trying to sled on the muck!

But the wonderful news was that Emora discovered she does love sledding after all!  The other hills were just way too big and fast for her speed.  She was so excited out here and kept exclaiming to me- I DO like it mommy!

PLUS I had bought this little play snowboard one day since it was totally on sale for cheap.  It has been way too scary and dangerous on the big hills, but on these little runs it was perfect.  My kids and Arwen have never tried snowboarding, but this gave them a chance to get the feel of it a bit.  I tried it too, but let me tell you, it was very terrifying!  I'm sure with real equipment it could be a lot better, but I was a major wus.

Backwards descent by Ivan the fearless.

And the truly Courageous on the snowboard.

We had such a blast, although the kids weren't very good at sharing sleds with me.  Looks like I need yet another magic carpet!

We ended our outing with popcorn picnic in the snow.  That was a new experience- and salty popcorn with snow is quite delicious.

OK, now spring- we could use some melting action!!!

More from our winter jaunt

I know, I'm getting way more pictures of Emora than the others.  But she has a lot of catch up to do.  I get more time with her and the biggest reason is that she hasn't figured out to run away when I pull the camera out.  The others are not really avoiding the camera as much as they don't have time to be bothered with it.  So I get the girls most (Dominique still likes to pose on occasion).  To capture Ivan he has to be doing something he thinks is impressive- or I take it when he doesn't know it, or I remind him that he will miss being included in the pics some day when he goes to look at them (which he has).

Take a flying leap!!  Weird to think that in a couple of months we'd be waist deep in water here, or maybe even over our heads.

I'm hoping to be kayaking these waters as soon as it melts.

See the sun does shine here!

They were thirsty again, so now they turned to eating snow.

Heading home they decided the snow mounds from where they plowed made a great house.  The girls decided to share a room with bunk beds and Ivan's room was off to the other side.

The girl's room also had a slide down the side.  Who wouldn't want a room with a slide exit?

Look what we found buried in the snow.  That's how deep the snow is.  Most of the time, it was crusted over enough to walk mostly on top of it, but every once in a while we would break through and it was shocking to realize how deep the snow was.  I'd sink down to my knees.  We dug out the horse some so that Emora could sit "on" it and so that we could see it for the pic!

Ride'em my little Texan, turned snow bird ;)

hair, face and mind

Some days Emora lets me prettify her.  This day, she wanted face paint, so step one was to get her hair up and out of her face.  Since the paint was a princess decor, I thought we should get fancy with her hair too.

We saw this design on the net.  The net is so fun for great ideas.  She got some new face paint for Christmas, so we wanted to try it out.  Now we have a variety of colors and can do a lot of different designs.

Today the boys went to the city to do errands, so the girls and I did our wii dance games and watch a movie, gorged on popcorn and danced some more.

And Princess Rosebud.  The girls have chosen and fought over that name lately.

My little darling- growing so fast, but still just a cute little munchkin.

I got this idea from Holly.  She had her library books displayed to get her kids interested in reading them.  These ones were all due the next day and we hadn't read them yet, so it was time to get them out for a reading frenzy.  Emora and I have lots of reading frenzies.  She loves being read to.  I never thought I'd ever tire of reading, but I can honestly say that some days I do reach a limit!

Thankfully at that point, she will usually be happy to "read on her own".  She picks up a book and uses her own words to tell the story.  She does have an uncanny memory.  One day Dominique read her a story and then she came and "read" it to me and I was shocked that she nearly got all the words the same!  She for sure had the exact ideas of each page, if not the exact verbage.  My little smarty pants!  She also loves to play games and beat me!  She also likes to boss me around, that's not always so nice ;)

Part 1 ice castle revisited

So I'm sure you're already tired of the ice castle pics, but hey, it's winter here.  Lotsa days are too cold for anything.  When the sun is shining and it warms up a little, it's time to get out and who lives next to a cool looking ice castle?  So we had to go check it out again and get a little walk and some pics in!

These pics are not in order- oh well, above is the ice bar.  We found shot glasses made of ice.  I guess they had some happening beverages available during the night events.  We are boring, home by 9ish people.

This is so awesome.  Workers were here nearly around the clock for about 2 months in the dead of winter, -20 and everything- making this bridge.  This is where some flood damage happened a year (2?) ago and they built it up and added a walking section.  This is 5 min. from our house and the shortcut from our house to Echo lake, so I'm so glad they added this.  It was a bit terrifying to walk or bike with my kids over this bridge as cars went by.  People were generally very careful, but still.  Now it's totally protected for pedestrians and bikers.

The stage and castle melting in the sun.

I told her this was dirty and so nasty to suck on, but kids'll be kids I guess.  Thankfully we have been super healthy, maybe being exposed to all that muck is making her stronger??? (mother's denial, just indulge me).

ah yes, one of the shot glasses.

The icicles were so pretty.

Our friend posted some great jumping pictures with him and his lovely lady, so I thought I'd get some of the kids.  So very fun!

It was warm enough that they were peeling layers off.  Emora's dress wasn't even all the way buttoned in the back!  Such a little turkey!  More to come...

Life changes

I'm a little bit of a pinterest junkie.  I am finding that I love some projects and will add them to our repertoire and others don't seem near as fun as they sounded.  This is one we'll probably do each year... We filled balloons with water and food coloring and put them outside when it was -30 or so.  We let them freeze several nights then pulled the balloon part off.   Voila- colored balls!  This year, they have really been decor, but we could put out bottles and do bowling, or make colored people, or yard decor.

This is a card we made for the Standing Buffalo community.  Their dancers were at the winter festival and a pic was posted in the paper.  It nearly made me cry to watch them dance, sing and pray after all they've been through (they are down the road and have had a couple of homicides and numerous suicides this year).  Again, saw this on pinterest-- Emora and I cut strips from the pics and glued them onto a silhouette.  I'll definitely need to try this again, I loved how it came out.

This project was lots of fun.  I complicated and messed it up a bit by having her do the two hands, and it was a much harder project than I thought, for Emora to do.  She can't quite follow the lines, so all she ended up doing was the final color of yellow over it all.

She does love to color though!

and be the source of laughter!

It is slowly dawning on me what a huge transition we are moving through each day as Emora grows older.  For nearly a decade, we've had baby on our minds, in our home, baby stuff in the closet and toddler activities.  As Emora moves through preschool age, she is bringing me books and telling me they are too babyish for her.  Wow!  We've always had a next kid to use it.  Now it's the big decision of what to pass on and what to treasure away.  I'm a big believer in letting the goods flow through.  If there is someone who can use it, use it they should!  At the same time, there are some puzzles that we have of Brian's when he was a kid, that my kids also got to use and there was something really amazing in watching them and being able to tell them- your dad did that puzzle when he was your age.  So I'm squirrelling away some much used books and games, puzzles, that we will enjoy when I'm WAY older than now, in the next generation.

This week, I also found myself taking pictures to remember them by.  Emora will still enjoy this puzzle for a while, but his days are numbered.  I've been doing this puzzle with a little one since Ivan was small.

Emora decided she is getting big for her stroller and I figured, yeah, this summer, you may be too old to squeeze in there.  Wow, this thing has gone a lot of miles!  But we know someone with a baby on the way and that baby will want to see the world too and we've got the wheels to get him/her there.  We've had this about 9 years!  I have used it more than any baby item ever.  Who knew when we got it that it would be such a huge part of our lives!  It's not new at all, but has some kick left to it, so onward it goes.  Emora and I gave it a bath and shower to make it nice and less garage smelly ;)  Again it hit me that all the big baby things are disappearing.  Emora is still in a car seat, but is about 3 lbs away from a booster and I guess we'll be moving the sippy cups out too, although they sure do handle spills better than cups!  It's not just her who is growing up- our whole family is growing up along with her- out of the youngest stages and into the next era- of school and soccer, karate, dance, school activities, tests, homework, "secret crushes" and friend issues.  It's such an amazing journey and not one you can pre-imagine before it happens.  I'm so thankful to get to travel it with this Baggett team, no matter how bonkers they can make me- they belong with me and I with them.

Summit at the Jam Space

First off, I have to admit to not taking these pics of Brian and his band.  Richard Groulx, owner of the Jam Space took them, so all credit goes to him.  Brian played an awesome sold out concert the other night out in the middle of no where, Saskatchewan--- oops, the place is Lemberg and really, the Jam space is awesome.  Richard has really brought music to the people and Brian is proof of it- as he journeys out there by times.  He was taking Ivan out there once a week (about 30 min. away) for guitar lessons.  But it wasn't really resonating with Ivan yet, maybe some time down the line.

Brian did a first set solo on stick- playing some of his music, music by other stick players and other instrumental pieces, then after a short break, the rest of his band came up and played some of his songs, some of their songs and other known songs.

It was a really fun night.  When he plays with the band, Brian will alternate between his Stick and bass, but he's having some issues with his bass, so he had to borrow Grant's.  The band is GH Summit- with Grant Hoffman the leader, his wife Pixie, brother Graham, daughter, son-in-law, Brian and any others that join them for a gig.  This time the regular drummer was busy, so they had Ryan play.  He did great too.  I don't get to hear them all that much, since I'm usually home with the trio while Brian drives off for gigs, but I'm glad he is getting to explore, nurture, share his artist side.  Who knew we had to come to small town Sask for music opportunities to flourish.

I also discovered a ton of pics on my camera- like a 100 or so!  So I better get posting!  I realized I did have pics of my cuz after all.  Lin, Josh and Jack from their visit.

Seriously, this kid probably understands the internet better than I do already!  In my day.... hahaha!

Ivan got his gi tonight for karate and he was so excited!  He looks really great in it.  So I got a few more pics taken.  Dominique has her first loose tooth and is over the moon excited about it.  I also signed up the kids for soccer tonight and a first for me, volunteered to coach Dominique's team.  Unfortunately, after I had hyped Emora up for her first year of soccer, I realized they don't start here until age 5!  Oops!  As a consolation, I did promise her I'd plan some sort of soccer playdate.  She didn't act overly disappointed, so that's good and it was a lot easier on the pocket book to only put 2 in instead of 3!

It'll be a crazy 2 months, but hopefully lots of fun too.  It's so neat to see the kids trying something new, learning from other adults, figuring out teamwork...