We Woke Up To Snow ...

Another quick update ... more pics than all my waffling. Yesterday we were told snow is coming but we didn't want to get Jade too excited because often when snow is said to be coming, it doesn't and she gets so disappointed but anyway this time was different.

By the time I went to bed around 12 there was still no snow, not even rain but when I woke up in the middle of the night, around 2h30 there had already been a snow dusting so I knew we had a good chance of snow, at 5h30 I woke up to make sure there was snow and that school and work for me was cancelled and then hopped back into bed till Jade got up, and was she excited !!!

Here is the first picture I took, opening our balcony door slightly to get the shot, it was like -4 for it wasn't too bad or cold at all.



Dave and Jade went out first this morning because I was just really scared I would slip on the pathways but Dave said it was ok, so after a while I joined them too, not playing in the snow as much as they did, I just kept warm and watched them get all wet and cold. Thankfully the little bug in my tummy kept me from being target practise too ... she has her advantages (hehehe). Dave couldn't stay too long, he had meetings at work that he had to attend but at least he got to play some.

This is in the car park, this is Daves car.



This is my car.



Here are a couple of pics of Jade, unfortunately the camera doesn't really pic up that it is snowing, pity coz it's really pretty. I don't think the snow will accumulate much more, it is starting to stop now, we have maybe 3 inches.





The snow on the trees is so pretty, I think it would be perfect if this had happened on Christmas but oh well, I guess we will have to move State before we get snow at Christmas.



Without true snow clothing it's really cold to play in the snow, Dave was really taking strain, he is a real wimp when it comes to cold anyway so throwing wet snow into the mix is so not his thing (hehehe).



That's our balcony on the left, we are on the ground floor.



We all walked down to the park and Dave and Jade played there for while, it was quite funny how they were playing, Jade tried to escape Daves snowballs and went down the slide which was packed with snow, I could tell she was shocked when she came out the other end (hehehe).



Dave throwing snowballs at Jade, don't worry she got him back many times.



Anyway we are in for a break now, I am sure when she sees some kids outside she will want to go out again, so in the meantime I am trying to dry the jackets, boots and gloves for the next round. Guess my drier is going to run all day again today.

Jade and I are kind of lucky to be home today to watch the inauguration of President Obama, I am not sure how much she will take in but she and I will watch some of it together, I guess it's history so we better take note :-) She would not have been off school today and I would have worked this morning too so we got lucky with the snow.

I might post more later if I get more but with the snow stopping, I think that's probably it !!!

Quick Update

Hi There

I know it's been a while since I last updated, sorry !!! But there hasn't been anything exciting to blog about but I thought I would quickly give y'all an update of what has been going on lately.

Jade is fine, doing well at school and gymnastics so that's good. Thankfully her nose cleared up nicely, it's still a bit pink but it looks like thankfully there won't be any scars. I know I promised to post some ice skating videos but it is such a pain to upload videos here at the apartment, my connection is almost as bad as South Africa ... so it's frustrating and I will rather post them later when we move into the house, which won't be long now :-) Anyway, here is one pic of her skating amongst everyone on the open air ice rink that was in the city. We took her at night so that the lights were on and it made it more special for her. The ice was very slippery, way more than the other rink she was on, she got frustrated quickly which surprised me but after a quick lecture about being a quitter she got right back on the ice and thoroughly had a ball, got better and better, she skated for hours !!!



Dave is well, I can tell by his mood lately that he is getting stressed about the house now, you know how he is with all the financial stuff ... anyway we close on the house this coming Friday the 23rd, closing means we sign all the paperwork and get handed the keys, golly it's finally happening, very exciting stuff. There is a bunch of work that needs to be done at the house before we start moving, Dave wants to treat the garage floor, this is a huge undertaking but I think he will do that the first weekend we have the keys, it's a step by step process so it will probably take him the entire weekend. Then all the blinds need to be hung, or all the important ones, the rest can wait, all the fans need to be done but they can be done later too, I want some extra shelving put into the closets, so he will need to do that as soon as possible or I won't be able to get started doing my bit. Then we found out we need to treat all the tiles throughout the house too, I think that's just wrong and on discussion with a bunch of people Dave is trying to get the builder to do it for us. But other than that, there's still a good amount of work to be done before we start moving our stuff in. We plan on being in the house completely by the 7th of February so most of the big moving will be done that weekend, we have some people coming out to help Dave with the heavy stuff so please don't worry about me, I won't be doing any of that !!! The pod and some furniture plus the refrigerator will be delivered before then so we will be able to work with all that stuff to get the house comfy in the meantime. I cannot wait to get out of the apartment but I know I need to be patient and go slow and it will eventually all come together :-) Hold thumbs all goes well with the closing !!!

As for me, I am plodding along or should I say waddling along :-( I am now 21 and a half weeks pregnant and finally starting to feel the baby move a little more. I have never been one for enjoying the movement, I think it's quite yucky actually but with our history, I think this time around I will try and enjoy the movement and take it as a sign that all is well more than anything else. I really haven't done any reading this pregnancy, weird actually because with Jade all I did was read but I soon realized that nothing could prepare you for parenthood and a new baby ... so I figured this time around I just wouldn't even bother. That being said, I was on a website that gave the measurements for babies at 21 weeks and I couldn't believe that this baby is about 7 1/2 inches right now, from head to rump that is and then you would add another almost 3 inches on for the legs ... makes it all so much more real doesn't it ? Well I am still enjoying the nausea, yeah right, why is it that woman get to play the biggest roles in kids lives and still have to be the one to suffer through pregnancies, why couldn't men have taken on that role ... very unfair if you ask me !!!

What else can I tell you, gosh it's been cold her lately, I can't remember what the coldest temperature has been but I know it was more than -10 and let me tell you, that's cold !!! The days haven't got any warmer than around 5 degrees lately, without the wind that is ok but when you throw in a breeze, oh my gosh it's cold. We are used to it now thank Heavens but still it's really cold. I wonder sometimes though how it can be that cold and it not snow, very weird if you ask me.

On that note, yesterday afternoon when I was on my way home from the store I noticed that the fountains at the apartments next to ours had frozen up, so before church last night I took Dave and Jade to see it, I should have allowed more time for us to hang out there because she had a ball. It was really quite pretty since the water was still coming out the top, some of the water had iced too and before I could tell Jade any different, oh my gosh, she just stepped onto the ice, I nearly had heart failure, I mean it wasn't deep or anything but how silly could she be. Dave was right there so he grabbed her out but she had her full weight which is around 50 pounds now, on the ice and it didn't crack, amazing. She and Dave were trying to break the ice and managed in some places, then they would throw it in the air and let it break on the other ice when it landed, they had great fun. Jade wanted to go there again today but she has a bit of the sniffles today so I think we will pass on that today, anyway I don't want the responsibility of her being that close to the ice again ... she is off school today thankfully, it's Martin Luther Kings birthday so hopefully the sniffles will be done with tomorrow. Here's a pic of the fountain.



Ok, well that's me for now, I will probably only update again after we move so it might be a while. Oh by the way, both of Jades top big front teeth are lose, oh golly that's not going to be a pretty picture when they come out but hopefully they grow in as fast as the other one did.

Take care y'all.

Another Proud Parent Moment

Yesterday evening we went off to church like normal, now from previous emails you might know already that in the beginning of the Mass, Father calls all the kids to the front and then they leave from there with a teacher which keeps them occupied for some of the Mass before they all join the congregation again. Well usually in the last five minutes before the Mass starts Jade draws a picture, I am not sure if the kids have been encouraged to do this but she does it every week now and then folds it in 4 and it gets put in one of the prayer baskets that the kids take up to the alter when everything for communion is taken forward.

We never tell her what to draw, she does whatever is in her mind that day, it's usually religious in some form though, anyway for some reason yesterday she didn't fold the paper, I think it was because we ran slightly late and she actually didn't get to finish the picture off, so she walked forward to where all the kids where, she of course always pushes her way to the front which makes Dave and I cringe but anyway. So I saw Father bend down and speak to her and I thought, oh my gosh now what ? He took the picture from Jade and asked her her name and if he could show the congregation her picture, of course she grabbed her 5 minutes of fame with open arms (hehehe), now you have to remember this church holds about 4000 people and right now so soon after Christmas all the Masses are pretty much full. So Father showed everyone her picture, he then asked Jade if he could hang onto it and use it as part of his Homily and for what she knows of Homily, she said yes, everyone giggled and well he promised to get the picture back to her, and off they all went with the teacher.

Now obviously she was not there for the Homily but my golly what was amazing is she drew the picture below which was Jesus in the manger with the star above and well his Homily had to do with just that ... so right in the middle of his Homily he once again brought that picture out and referred to his budding artist Jade and her beautiful picture which painted a true picture of the Gospel for that night, can you believe this ???

Dave and I were blown away and it was such a proud moment, now I was wondering how he was going to get the picture back to her but he had chosen her to bring the prayer basket forward so when she went forward with all the rest taking forward the Communion goodies, he gave her her picture back, it really was a cool moment.



Now when we got to the car we of course told her how very lucky she was to have had that opportunity etc. but we also had to tell her that yes she got lucky but from now on that she must fold her picture as the Father does not have time during Mass to look at pictures, we told her that he looks at everything in the prayer baskets later and he will see her pics there, you see we know her well enough that come next week, she is going to get right up there in the Fathers face with a new picture :-) only next week might be a different Father etc. we also told her that she needs to give some other kids chance to take up the prayer baskets as she has already done it 3 times recently, it's so cute to see how involved she wants to be but my golly, give the other kids a chance.

So that was another proud parent moment in our lives :-)

My Poor Child And Her Rug Burn !!!

I had to publish these silly pics ... Let me start by saying that with Jades gymnastics background, she doesn't do anything around the house normally, everything has a skip and a jump in it, and if there's enough place between A and B there will be cart wheels or forward rolls, not to mention all the trampoline work she does on her bed and on my sofa when she thinks I am not looking ... and well back flips etc. I won't even go there so, that all being said !!!

Friday night she had just gotten out of the bath and was getting into her pj's when she came to me and said her nose was sore, I could see it was a little red but nothing much since she was all red from her hot bath anyway, but I asked her what she had done ... Apparently she was skipping and somehow landed on her nose, yeah I don't know either. I joked that she was using an imaginary rope and when she tripped over the rope and fell, she was too busy holding the imaginary handles to put her hands down and break the fall before eating the rug but I think what happened from what she told me is that she was skipping, you know like running, jumping skipping and she tripped and before she knew it her nose was to the rug.

Poor thing, later that night before I went to be I went to check on her and her nose must have been glowing close to what Rudolph's glow, I even called Dave in to show him, it was really red and by Saturday morning you can tell it was a real rug burn and it was scabbed over :-( So now we are just trying to keep it dry so it will heal well. Thank God she knows not to pick at it and well it's already started itching so thankfully it is on the mend, hopefully it doesn't break open in her sleep, it really looks ouch !!!

I was so mad that she was so silly that she got upset with me and told me I disappointed her ... she is going to give me a run for my money come teenage hood that is for sure. She is very shy to go to school with it tomorrow so we will see how that goes, she can be super sensitive sometimes so hopefully the kids wont be too mean and there won't be too many tears.

Dave thinks I have her well trained with all my hormones going on ... and actually I am super sensitive even without the added hormones, so adding a third girl to the house is going to be almost too much for him. It's good that he doesn't have a sensitive bone in his body !!! Today Jade and I were watching Chronicles of Narnia but I went off to shower and she watched the end with Dave, well when the lion got killed she cried her heart out, so I told her while daddy was laughing at her which didn't help that if mommy was watching it with her, she too would be crying ... poor thing.

Anyway here are three pics of her nose !!!

3 Quick Pics To Start The New Year !!!

Happy New Year to everyone :-) I hope that New Year brings y'all nothing but happiness, good health and golly could I be so bold as to wish for good fortune too !!!

Here are just 3 quick pics of Jade taken this morning, looking at past posts on my blog, I realize that I don't publish as many pics of her as I did in the past, probably because she is a little less cooperative these days when mom asks her to look cute for a few minutes for pictures, she really couldn't be bothered, she's growing up fast, there is no stopping that !!!



The apartment is a bit dark so sorry the pics are not great but it's cold outside, they predicted freezing rain today so I have been very hesitant in going out but I have to at some point, need to go get stuff for the weekend. I was trying to explain to my mom that we have gotten used to the cold here that we hardly wear a jacket if it's between 10 - 15 degrees, unless it is windy which it is hardly ever here, the wind chill is what makes you cold. But like today it is 4 degrees, it isn't that cold but because it is rainy and wet, we will have to do the jacket and boots for sure !!!



Jades hair is so much easier short, especially for school in the mornings but I think Dave has been whispering in her ear that she needs to grow her hair again, you see he likes it longer, I think he has forgotten how long it takes to blow dry the long hair, or what a mess it is first thing in the mornings but anyway, this past week she asked me when she can grow her hair again, so I told her that we can have one more Summer with it short and then maybe we can start to grow it again. I figured with the baby coming and all, I was going to push for that at the very least, she seemed happy with that thank Heavens !!!



Something I had forgotten to mention was that when school broke up for Winter Break Jade got her Kindergarten Testing Results which we were really proud of, it seems that she is pretty much ahead of her game at this point which is exciting for us to hear :-)

The testing is broken up into 4 categories ISF (Initial Sound Fluency - What sound does 'letters' begin with ?) here she got a 36, the goal is 25, they also gave us an indication of where she should be at the beginning, middle and end of first grade, I will let you in on that goal on the next 3, there wasn't one for this one.

Then for LNF (Letter Naming Fluency) she got a 58, the goal was 27. The goal for beginning first grade is 37.

For NWF (Nonsense Word Fluency - Read this word 'wub') she got 42, the goal is 13, beginning first grade the goal is 24, middle is 50 and end is 50.

Lastly for PSF (Phoneme - Sound - Segmentation Fluency - Tell me all the sounds in the word 'mop' ) she got a 37, the goal is 18. Beginning first grade is must be 35, middle 35 and end 35.

So as you can see, we are very happy with what we see right now :-)

Anyway thought I would share that with y'all. Now it's after 2pm and I am still in my PJ's ... golly when school starts back again next week, I am so going to be in trouble, I will have to get with the program again (hehehe), I guess I need to go get showered and done so Jade and I can get out a bit.

Take care.