Halloween

Halloween has been wet and cold but as far as children were concerned very successful.  Jacob has (in true Jacob fashion) counted his loot and announced that he has 60 candy bars, 2 tattoos, 2 cans of coke, a post-it note pad and various plastic halloween rings.  We only visited 10 houses so a very big thank you to all our very generous neighbours should you ever read this.

I am tired now so shall just post these pics...

Jacob's pillow case wig

Halloween Horrors in action

the stash

I have put away my sewing box and am hoping not to see a pom pom, googly eye or glue gun for a very long time.

Hurricanes and Halloween Horrors

I have been so frantic with Halloween preparations for the children that I have hardly registered the hurricane dominating the headlines.  We got the tail end of it last night with winds gusting up to 100km/h, which was very loud through all the trees.  No damage to our property but I imagine that plenty of other people around here have been less lucky.  It's calmed down a lot now but gentle old Lake Huron is still looking quite wild.

And so to Halloween.  I was kind of organized for all the dressing up because Jacob is going to be a ghost, same as last year and the costume still fits, and Rose wanted to be a princess, very easy with her current wardrobe and choice of accessories.  However, Rose announced on Saturday afternoon that she is going to be a spider and I completely forgot to buy Jacob a scary wig.  So yesterday Rose and I panic bought craft materials and I sewed like a dervish all day and this is what we came up with.  I was quite pleased, not least because it's sewn onto a fleece lined jacket so she wouldn't be cold.  This afternoon she wore it for the Junior Kindergarten party then suddenly announced at tea time that she is never wearing it again and is going to be a princess.  What a waste of time and effort.

I have just fashioned a wig for Jacob from a pillow case and old bits of wool (photos tomorrow, he's in bed) but I'm afraid that the spiders constructed out of pompoms and googly eyes may be a bit cute for an 8 year old boy.  I hope he doesn't get embarrassed.

Curling

Today I think I have made real steps toward becoming properly Canadian, we took Jacob for his first curling session.  What a strange game it is and whoever would have thought you could incorporate housewifery into an Olympic sport.

Jacob had a great time skidding around on the ice, falling over and pushing rocks about and doing all this while leaning heavily on a brush.  The kids all look really cute scooting about, I didn't realize but in order to get around effectively on the ice they have 1 slippery foot (achieved by special shoes or tape fixed to the sole of an ordinary trainer) and 1 grippy foot (again its a special shoe or a slip-on rubbery thing) and they kind of slide around like they all have imaginary skateboards.  Jacob did really well with all of it and on his last go managed to get his rock (big granite thing that they push) 3/4 of the way down the lane which was pretty good for a first go.

I was very pleased to find that the kids group is called 'Little Rockers', and dismayed at having to tell Rose (repeatedly) that she has to be 6 before she can join in.  I really want Jacob to get good so he can compete, I so, so, so want to go to a 'Bonspiel'.  What a cool name for a tournament.

Here is Jacob posing on the ice.

   
And here is Rose's idea of an appropriate spectating outfit.  How did she manage to look so much like Henry VIII?

Falling Leaves

For the past 2 or 3 days there has been a brisk breeze blowing and it has been raining leaves.  Everything is now russet with a few patches of gold and there are huge piles of leaves that are really satisfying to kick your way through.  We can see our neighbors on either side now and from the bottom of the drive I can see the highway, it feels less like we live deep in the woods.

I went for a walk in the Pinery yesterday, it was very quiet, you could just hear the wind in the trees, the odd twig snapping and the endless drift and rustle of falling leaves, I didn't see a lot of wildlife but I have to admit that when I'd been on the trail on my own long enough not to be able to see the visitor centre I started to sing to myself and looked for a big stick to carry just in case.  There's not much of a threatening nature around here but I didn't fancy fighting off a pack of hungry coyotes with my bare hands.  In Hindsight I'm not sure about the usefulness of the stick, perhaps we could play fetch.

Leaves have been falling off the oak trees so fast that it became impossible to see the entrance to the drive as it was about 6 inches deep in them until Ian came today and blew them all into big heaps.  I didn't realize until we moved out here that there is more than 1 species of oak but there are 12 (or maybe 16) found in Canada and we have 7 in this area. They all have different sized and shaped leaves and 1 of them doesn't have acorns - fancy that!  I think that we have some Red Oaks around our house with spikey leaves that grow very big.  The children and I grubbed about in the drifts this afternoon and found these fine examples (the leaves, not the children).

Look out Santa, here comes Rosedolf

Why do I Bother

This is about me so anyone reading because Jacob has given them 1 of his business cards might find it a little dull.

Ever since Rose's birthday I have been really good.  I always find myself gaining a few extra pounds in September and October, I put it down to 3 birthdays in quick succession with associated cake eating, salads being much harder to stomach when it's cold and my body not understanding that I live in a centrally heated house and can put on a sweater so I don't need a nice layer of blubber for the winter.

So for the past 2 weeks I have been eating really well, avoiding sweets and not being a greedy guts and lapsing into excessive crisp/chip eating in the evening in front of the TV.  I have even been exercising 5 times a week.  And guess what? I've gained 2 and a half pounds.  How unfair is that?  Is it possible that no matter what I do my physiology is too closely related to that of a seal, or perhaps a bear and I need the extra fat to sustain me through hibernation (I wish! - the closest I get to hibernation is a lie-in until 7.00am when the children 'sleep in').  Tom says I must be gaining muscle but I doubt that very much, I think it takes more than a few times shambling round the block to put on 2 and a half pounds of actual muscles.

Ah well, I shall stick it out for a bit longer then give in in time to eat Jacob and Rose's Halloween treats.

Specs and Hair

Today I picked up the new specs that I didn't let you help me choose.  Tom says I look like a very stern 1950s secretary but when he put them on he looked like a slightly dubious, Scandinavian architect so he's one to talk.  What do you think?

Also, Jacob had the rest of his hair cut to match his butchered fringe.

Very smart and definitely not a girl!

A Day at the Museum

It's been a quiet weekend so I shall tell you about Friday.  I think this story will lose something in the telling but I haven't wanted the ground to swallow me up so badly since Jacob used the V word in front of lots of OAPs on the pier in Arnside.

As it was a PD day and the kids were not in school we went on a cultural expedition to a museum in Sarnia.  It is a privately owned place featuring 1 man's collection of masses of minerals, gems and fossils and also quite a bit of taxidermy. Rose wanted to to take home a stuffed zebra (that would look good on the roof of the car down the 402) and Jacob wanted to know if real fish have plastic googly eyes when they are alive.

All was going well and considering it wasn't a big place we got our $12 worth and had been there for well over an hour before the kids thoroughly embarrassed me.  While Rose and I were at the washroom Jacob had a lovely chat with the nice and proper looking lady in the gift shop and randomly informed her that I swore before we arrived (it was true but in my defense I was driven to it).  She was shaking from laughing as she told me, she had asked Jacob why I would do such a thing and he told her that he and Rose had been playing up all the way from Grand Bend (which is also true, although rabbit was being blamed for a lot of it).  I told her that I don't usually swear at my children but I'd just had to parallel park, she said she knew how I felt and that set her off again.

From then on things deteriorated rapidly.  While we were chatting the collection owner was very kindly showing Jacob some priceless jewels not usually on show because Jacob showed such interest and because he thought Jacob was a girl (which didn't go down well) so I was trying to look suitably amazed and impressed while the lady at the cash desk kept disolving into giggles every few minutes and Jacob and his new friend rabbitted on and Rose didn't know where to look in a gift shop full of sparkly, twinkly things.

When I finally got everybody out of the door I discovered to my horror that Rose was clutching a large heart shaped rose quartz with love written on it which I had to return immediately and frisk Rose for anything else, this set the nice lady off again.  By the time we were back in the car my head was spinning and I was ready for a very strong coffee.

I won't be taking them out again on my own in a hurry.

Power

Yesterday I couldn't blog because we had a power cut.  We lost our electricity at about 1pm and didn't get it back until after I was in bed and asleep, 11pm I think.  It really is rubbish how useless the modern world is without electricity.  Everything is electrical in some way or another, even the things that don't run on it directly have chargable batteries that give up.  By 4 o'clock we didn't have internet, phones, heating or lighting.

I smugly thought that we would be fine because we have a gas hob (unusual over here) but it has electrical ignition and I didn't have a single match in the house to light it with.  I contemplated driving into town to buy some but a man at the mail boxes told me all the stores were shut because of health and safety and their tills won't work without power.  I probably would have cried anyway because also all the traffic lights were down and nobody (me included) knows how to use an intersection without guidance these days.

In the end I lit the hob by lighting the BBQ with its weird ignition system, lighting a birthday candle on BBQ flame, transferring the birthday candle flame to an oil lamp (Chuck and Suzanne kindly left 2) carrying the oil lamp into the kitchen and relighting the birthday candle then using it to light the hob.  About 10 minutes after this olympic piece of ingenuity Gary came over with a gas lighter so I could have just waited.

Next week I will get better prepared and buy matches and a hundred tea lights.

Here is the photo I was going to put up had I had the means to do it.  Rose really out did herself with this outfit.  I let her go to school like that and I am looking forward to getting these photos out at inappropriate moments when she is grown up.

Some More Colours

Jacob gave out the first 5 of his business cards today.  We will see how long it takes him to write anything on the blog.

I have been having trouble staying on the road lately due to staring at all the fall colour.  Our neighbourhood is catching up now, here is the view from our garage.

and here is the view up to the garage.

I didn't know hostas go yellow in the autumn, when I tried to grow them in the UK they were all annihilated by slugs before the end of May.

Rabbit Projects and JIL

Did not think I'd be blogging today as Mondays are generally reserved for very mundane activities such as trying to civilize the house after the weekend and grocery shopping.  While we were out doing the shopping today a very nice lady on the till in Sobeys asked Rose what she would be doing this afternoon.  She very confidently replied 'crafts', on being asked what sort of crafts it turned out she would be doing 'rabbit projects' so that was my afternoon sorted.

With no planning and not a lot in the way of materials I couldn't come up with much but in the end we made a rabbit mask to replace the Easter bunny one that she wore until it finally broke in September.  Actually, I ended up doing most of the work while Rose watched TV and supervised.  When we were done I was instructed to make one for rabbit too.  They look like up-to-no-good, trainee super heros.

Also Jacob had very exciting mail.  Our friends Julianna and Metin made him JIL business cards and he is quite beside himself with them.  He'd better write something on this blog soon if he's going to be handing out the address left, right and centre.

Odds and Ends

Many thanks for all the votes but in the end I didn't go for any of the spectacles pictured on Thursday because when I returned them to the optometrist with fully functional eyeballs I discovered that there were lots of other pairs that I preferred.  I shall return next week to try them on.

Today we spent hours at the mall in Sarnia (it's ok, I'm bored of CS Lewis jokes now too) buying yet more shoes for the Jacob and Rose.  It was 4 degrees this morning which I think is probably considered too cold to keep making them go to school in sandals.  It was one of the most boring days of shopping I've ever experienced and I'm not sure why because the children were actually pretty well behaved, they even managed to be civilized while we ate lunch.  I hope I have not become so accustomed to constantly nagging that life is no fun without it.

No photos today so here are a couple from last week.  Rose preparing to bake in her new birthday apron.

Jacob's Thanksgiving turkey he made at school.  All the feathers have things he is thankful for written on them, the top one says 'super teachers'.  Blimey!

Spectacular

Recently I have done a small amount of sewing and I found that I can no longer thread a small eyed needle without holding it out at arms length, squinting and sticking my tongue between my teeth so I thought I'd better get an eye test.  My distance vision is still 20/20 (just) but it seems that both eyes are going a bit with the close up stuff so I need reading glasses.

It was a very strange experience and on reflection I think that perhaps I should have just gone home, but after my eye examination I was led off to choose frames for my new glasses.  This may seem like a good idea except for the fact that I'd just had eye drops to dilate my pupils and I couldn't actually see anything clearly unless it was over 50 feet away.  So I'm wandering around the shop with a very nice lady who is putting glasses on me and saying "oh that's nice, or do you prefer one that's rounder?" and "how about these in a different colour" and I just couldn't see anything.  I ended up taking a box of 5 pairs home to try out and frankly they all look pretty much the same.

I have asked Tom what he thinks but I don't know if a man is really the right person to consult and the kids were not very useful (Jacob said I looked like a mad scientist and Rose likes all of them)  so I had Jacob take photos of me in 3 pairs and you can tell me what you think.  Here we go...

How about this pair

These make me look like a librarian

I feel like Sue Pollard in this last pair.  Vote now for your say, I have to take them back tomorrow.

Rose's Birthday and Thanksgiving

With the double whammy that was Rose's Birthday and Thanksgiving yesterday I was in no state to blog by the evening.  The birthday girl was very excited about the huge pile of presents awaiting her in the morning, she got so many new clothes that she couldn't decide on an outfit and had to put on a bit of each.  She got lots of gifts and I won't list them right now but I must say that I think that the accessories that come with Sylvanian Families have shrunk to ridiculously tiny proportions.

I had to assemble the gift box, lunch bags and notebooks.  The little tiny white blobs are erasers, I had to wrap stickers around those, by the time I had finished I knew that my eye test next Thursday is well overdue.

It was another lovely morning so we gave Rose the choice of which playground to visit and ended up at school (what weird children I have) where she and Jacob grubbed about in some dirt next to what Jacob refers to as his Doggie Den.



Can you see a den behind them? I can't

In the afternoon I had a turkey to cook for Thanksgiving and Grandpa came round with the favourite gift of the day.  She has been doing "Rockin' Roll" pretty much none stop since then.

 

 

Cake Preview

It is Rose's 4th birthday tomorrow and some weeks ago she requested a Dora the Explorer birthday cake.  I had a good look around for some sort of transfer or cheating method of producing this but to no avail, even Michaels, the amazing crafts shop didn't have one.  So today I have laboured for hours to turn a 9" circular cake into a recognisable Dora.

I hope Rose finds it acceptable.  If she takes 1 look at it at dinner time and says "who's that?" or "I changed my mind I want a fairy princess" I shall probably cry.  As we will no doubt be busy tomorrow and there will be other more pressing photos to upload, birthday presents, new outfits etc I am posting a picture of the cake now before I have the chance to drop it on the floor or Rose cries because it is the wrong cake.   So here it is.  I am quite pleased with the result but rather scared that it may be met with disappointment, she has very exacting tastes and there is no pink or glitter!

Princess Lunch

Today we had a Princess Lunch play date with Rose's friend Lillian.  It was very successful.  Lillian bought Rose a fabulous play dough machine for her birthday that looks like a fairy castle and produces play dough ball gowns on little princess figures.  Unusually for these things when finished they actually look quite like the pictures on the packet and are pretty easy to do.  Lillian got bored of that because she already has one so inevitably the ice cream factory came out and between the 2 machines there was shredded play dough everywhere.  Jacob even joined in and made yards of Rapunzel hair.

When they'd had enough of that we decorated crowns and wands, then it was lunch time and that was pretty much that.  Lillians Mum stayed so I got to have a chat and there was someone to help sweep up the play dough shreds.  It went well and was very quiet.  We found Rose asleep in front of the TV just before bed time.

Play dough Princesses

Newly decorated crown and another festival outfit

Keeping up with the Jones's

There are a lot of scarecrows around here at the moment, they are all quite twee and look like the characters from "Tots TV" and you can buy them in pretty much every shop in town.   I wanted something different so today we made our own.  Actually it's a project that has been going on for  a while and the garage broom has been living upside down in the master en-suite for a good few weeks while I fixed up the face and tried to find a source of straw that didn't involve climbing into a farmers field under cover of darkness.  The children enjoyed screwing up newspaper and stuffing things up Jacob's old trouser legs and I think the result is quite neat.  It's a shame nobody ever comes to the front door.

On a totally different subject, Rose's teacher sent me a note today and this is what it said...

Today at choice time, Rose emerged from under a table, crawling to chase a big marble that got away from her.  I asked Rose "Where did you come from?". Rose's reply, "England.  I moved here!"

Crafts and Colours

I wasn't going to write today but I had an interesting morning so here I am.  I had to pop into Sarnia to organise gifts for Rose's coming birthday (also put the white witch on the naughty step, arrange a dinner date with Prince Caspian banish evil from the kingdom etc) and while I was there I checked out a craft store I noticed last time we drove through.  I was in there for 1 hour and 20 minutes, shop assistants kept coming and asking if I was ok.  I have never seen so many things that I didn't realize I needed in 1 place before in my life.  I think it was the crafts version of Barnitts in York or Lakeland Plastics.  In the end I left with some Xmas gifts for the children some stuff for Rose's birthday and a whole load of other random items that I just had no idea were necessary but I'm absolutely sure that they are, how could I pass up 10yd spools of wire edged Xmas ribbon for $2 each.

On the way home I took the long way back as I hadn't had lunch and couldn't be bothered with the motorway.  The fall colours are starting to come in down here and all along the edge of the lake there were pockets of it amongst the green.  It looks particularly pretty right now because a lot of the maize has gone to a golden shade in the fields and the roadside banks are full of these really pretty purple wild asters that grow here.  Our immediate neighbourhood seems to be a bit behind on the fall changes, or it could be because this is Carolingian Oak Savannah and some of the varieties of oaks hang onto their leaves until spring as a frost defense mechanism, so perhaps they just go brown.  Anyway, on the way to the bus stop I took a couple of pictures of the Old Ausauble channel where we spotted basking turtles in the summer, its looking quite pretty and is less hazardous than stopping at the edge of highway 7 with traffic whizzing past at 90kph.