PhotoFunia Fun

Thanks to the wonderful Erin for the link to this site!

One day I will stop blogging about all the snow...

Li in the backyard
Originally uploaded by sassyanna

Here is a video of my brother's dog who was hanging with us for a couple of days. Lionel just LOVES snowballs, but hasn't quite figured out how to retrieve them in one piece.

Oh, and pardon Ken's ass at the end - he wasn't too impressed either, and will be more unimpressed that this video is online.

On a side note - I am trying to get a nice picture of our Christmas tree and would really like to have the kids in their pj's in the photo as well. Ethan refuses because he doesn't want the world to see him in his jammies. Oh it is not like the 70's when all our pj's pics were just put in an album!

December 24th is not Christmas Eve in our house...

It is my mom's birthday. And this year, the amazing cake lady "M" did a take on my mom's New Zealand heritage with a bit of a Canadian twist. I have talked about her previous creations here.

This little kiwi bird is all decked out in Canada gear, and knitting up a storm. Oh, and the cake tasted fantastic too.

This is what we woke up to this morning.

Ah...lots of the white stuff. The stuff that makes it impossible to get up to our house without four-wheel-drive. The stuff that keeps you housebound for a bit. I don't think I have got out of my pj's for a couple of days now. If I don't have to go anywhere I love the stuff!

Nicholas-ism (Part two).

Tonight I was sitting on the couch with Renee just having a cuddle. Our coffee table is the same height as the couch, and just far enough away that if I am sitting with my legs straight out my feet rest at the edge of the table. The kids of course think this is an open invitation to stand on my legs, (much like a gymnastics beam), swing over them, crawl under them, you get the idea.

So along comes Nick, and he proceeds to lie on top of my legs, and wrap his arms around my thighs, his legs around my calves, and then hangs himself upside down.

"Mom, I am going to just hang here like a sloth"

About five minutes later he tells me:

"Mom, it is such hard work being a sloth, isn't it?"

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have to do that kind of hard work for about half an hour....

Nicholas "ism"

"Mommy, I want to go and play in the snow!"

"Ok honey, make sure that you get all your gear and I'll help you put it on"

(a few minutes later....)

"Mom, I can't find my fuvaglova"

"Your what???"

"My fuv-a-glova" (he actually said it to me as though I was deaf and didn't speak english).

"Nicholas, I have no idea what you are talking about".

"MY FUV-A-GLOV-A" (this is a four year old's way of explaining what he is talking about - just say it louder).

"Tell me what a fuvaglova is Nick".

"The thing that I put on my head and over my ears that keeps me toasty warm"

"OH....your Balaclava..."

A reminder to those in power in the Canadian Government...

Play nice in the sandbox.

AND Re-read this below, by Robert Fulghum.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.